Reducing The Need For Synthetic Pesticides

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

It’s difficult to look into a crystal ball and imagine what the future of agriculture looks like, but there clearly seems to be a push for more climate-smart agriculture. Marta Baptista, Driscoll’s Global Director of Strategic Research and Technology Adoption believes this will lead to a reduction in synthetic pesticides in the coming years.

Baptista... "I'm excited with the possibility, which I believe is real, that agriculture will be possible with a dramatic reduction of synthetic pesticides. We're seeing it, we're filling it, we're testing it, and then think about all the resources. Behind the making of all those, uh, synthetic pesticides, all the inputs and all the power necessary. In some places, we're seeing it already today as, um, a result of pressure from regulation or consumers or the market or other drivers for that change. So that is one that is, in my opinion, inevitable and will happen perhaps faster than what one could think because it's, it's easy to get overwhelmed. You have a global network and think about all the pests and all the diseases that crops may have, but it's also nice to think about where is it working and then keep that as sort of, um, a direction, a vision to propagate elsewhere. So that is one area."

Again, that’s Marta Baptisa, Global Director of Strategic Research and Technology Adoption at Driscoll’s.