Dear Colleagues,

Since the mid-1900s, synthetic pesticides have become the default tool for managing a suite of both invasive and endemic pests, weeds and pathogens in farmland around the world. Though pesticides have secured copious amounts of food for a swelling human population, they have done so at non-negligible societal costs. Overreliance on chemical toxins now drives biodiversity loss, undermines the integrity of natural and man-made ecosystems, enlarges agriculture’s carbon footprint and jeopardizes human health. Only recently were pesticides termed a key determinant of global change. 

To mitigate these pervasive social–environmental problems, scientists have repeatedly called for a major overhaul of crop protection science by advocating more holistic ‘systems approaches’, a close integration of natural and social science disciplines and increasing the attention paid to ecosystem services. Scientists have repeatedly been challenged to consider the farming system as a ‘whole’ instead of as the sum of its parts, and to employ this ‘systems lens’ to remediate problems caused by pests, weeds or disease without resorting to chemical tools. Preventative, non-chemical measures also make up the foundation of integrated pest management (IPM)—an approach that has gained prominence since the 1970s. However, more often than not, scientists and practitioners alike continued to pursue easy, simplistic and pesticide-based solutions. For decades, all calls for wholeness-oriented science and a further harnessing of biodiversity for crop protection fell on deaf ears.

In recent years, this call for system-centric vs. pest-centric approaches has finally been heeded, with a surging momentum within fields such as agroecology, ecological intensification or regenerative agriculture. Additionally, agroecological and biodiversity-based measures are increasingly built into efforts to bolster resilience, shrink the environmental footprint of agriculture or attain more sustainable food systems. In all of those domains, scientists consciously reach out beyond their own disciplinary boundaries, consider a broader suite of social, ecological, above- and below-ground system strata and make smart use of the myriad natural functionalities that exist within farmland ecosystems. Agronomists, pollination ecologists, breeders, economists, plant pathologists and entomologists now join hands in pursuit of greater goals. One wonders: may disciplinary ‘silos’ across the vast crop protection spectrum at last disintegrate? Might they bring about transformative change in the world’s farming systems? Can one truly redesign agriculture so as to feed humanity without jeopardizing Planetary Health?     

In this Special Issue, we invite scientists to contribute manuscripts that embody the true spirit of ‘systems-centric’ crop protection. We aim to showcase case studies in which scientists look out of their traditional disciplinary ‘boxes’ in order to achieve a drastic phase-down (or an all-out phase-out) of synthetic pesticides in agri-food production systems. Specifically, we look forward to reading more about ways to mobilize, e.g., soil health, biological control, agroecological tactics, behavior-modifying semio-chemicals, microbial inoculants or plant x plant facilitation at field, farm and agro-landscape scales. We hope that this Special Issue will help drive a new wave of interdisciplinary crop protection science and ultimately result in an enhanced uptake of resilient, resource-frugal and pest-suppressive farming systems, all while curbing agro-chemical pollutants, shielding biodiversity and knowingly preserving our Common Future. 

Prof. Dr. Kris A.G. Wyckhuys
Dr. Nicolas Desneux
Dr. Yanhui Lu
Dr. Livy Williams
Guest Editors

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