The Importance of Good Agronomic Practices when Protecting our Food System

What is agronomy?

The word ‘agronomy’ is a combination of the Greek words ‘agros’ and ‘nomos’. Directly translated, it means ‘field’ and ‘to manage’, respectively. Now, ‘agronomy’ is formally defined as a branch of agricultural science that deals with the study of crops and factors affecting their growth.

Through research in soil, water management, disease management and crop protection, the main goal of agronomy is to identify and provide favourable environments to the crop for higher productivity.

All of these factors come together as a holistic – and now increasingly critical – method of effectively managing crops. Against a backdrop of climate change and rapidly changing consumer behaviours, there has been stronger emphasis on producing better quality crops at higher yield while reducing impact on the environment.

It’s vital that we understand how each factor in the study of agronomy affects crop health, crop yield and resistance to pests and diseases.

How can agronomy support food production?

Feeding a growing population has to become a global priority. As mentioned in my previous LinkedIn article, food production needs to increase by 70% by 2050[1]. I believe that agronomy lies at the heart of ensuring we’re producing enough quality food to feed the population of the world.

In a report published in the August 2018 edition of Science, a scientific journal publisher, researchers identified that crop production is likely to decrease as climate warming increases globally.

This effect will be exacerbated by pests – resulting in a 10 – 25% increase in crop destruction per degree Celsius of warming[2] for the three most important grain crops – wheat, rice, and maize.

One such example of a pest is the fall armyworm. An invasive insect-pest native to the Americas has travelled to Asia Pacific – leaving devastation to corn fields in its wake. Asia contributes almost 32% of global maize production[3], and it is no surprise that our Asian farmers are at great risk of the fall armyworm – resulting in yield losses which ultimately impact their livelihoods. 

With the experiences in other geographies, we assume that it is impossible to have complete control on fall armyworm with current available tools, but have placed increasing emphasis on managing the pest, and ensuring that damage is kept below threshold levels.

It is imperative that we work closely with agronomists to develop innovative farm practices to effectively control pests, while simultaneously protecting the environment and the livelihood of our smallholder farmers.

How can we use agronomy to mitigate the impacts of pests?

Practicing good agronomic practices and paying attention to habitat management, including conserving and encouraging the spread of natural enemies can suppress and mitigate the damage created by pests.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) also recommends avoiding late and staggered planting to enable the maize crop to escape FAW attacks. This is to ensure that farms will not continually provide the favoured food of the fall armyworm – young maize plants.[4]

Recent research conducted by the International Wheat and Maize Improvement Center suggests that there are several agronomy practices that affected the incidence of fall armyworm. This research was conducted by visiting 791 smallholder farms in Eastern Zimbabwe. Several learnings from the research has been summarized below:

1. Infrequent weeding/planting on land that had previously been fallow were found to increase fall armyworm damage to maize
2. Minimum and zero tillage or the application of manure and compost resulted in a decreased likelihood of fall armyworm infestation
3. Intercropping (growing a different crop among others) pumpkins was found to increase damage – offering shelter to moths, or facilitating plant-to-plant migration of the fall armyworm

The learnings from this report suggests that several practices could be implemented to control the fall armyworm situation from reaching critical levels in Asia.

Bearing this in mind, Corteva is continually committed towards implementing good agronomic practices in order to minimize the fall armyworm’s impact on smallholder farmers, which subsequently increases the food security of the region.

We are committed to:

1. Educating farmers on the importance of decreased soil tillage – directly decreasing the prevalence of fall armyworm in Asian farms
2. Sharing knowledge with the farming/scientific communities on fall armyworm, including its life stages, damage symptoms and management practices
3. Advocating the importance of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategies in the region – resulting in effective management of the pest, before the situation goes out of hand
4. Working together with agronomists – identifying effective ways to mitigate the impact of the fall armyworm and implementing best-practices into smallholders’ farms

We believe that this will directly result in minimizing the impact of fall armyworm in the region and create sustainable agriculture habits for our smallholders – resulting in prosperity in the long-term.

At Corteva, we take the responsibility of ensuring that we are growing adequate, nutritious and affordable food for the population – while protecting the environment. It is only through extensive collaboration with agronomists, can we ensure that we are equipped to understand best practices around crop management, which will lead to better yield, higher quality food with increased resistance to devastating pests, adverse climate conditions and diseases.

References:

[1] https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2017/11/10/Population-growth-a-threat-to-food-quality

[2] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6405/916

[3] https://www.cabi.org/cabreviews/FullTextPDF/2019/20193352460.pdf

[4] https://www.invasive-species.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/FAW-Evidence-Note-October-2018.pdf