Evidence that organic farming promotes pest control
Lucile Muneret  1@  , Matthew Mitchell  2  , Verena Seufert  3  , Stéphanie Aviron  4  , El Aziz Djoudi  5, 6  , Julien Pétillon  5  , Manuel Plantegenest  7  , Denis Thiéry  8  , Adrien Rusch  8  
1 : INRA, UMR 1065 Santé et Agroécologie du Vignoble, ISVV, Université de Bordeaux, Bordeaux Sciences Agro
INRA, UMR 1065 Santé et Agroécologie du Vignoble, ISVV, Université de Bordeaux, Bordeaux Sciences Agro
F-33883 Villenave d'Ornon Cedex -  France
2 : Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia
3 : Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK-IFU), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
4 : INRA, UMR BAGAP, INRA-ESA-Agrocampus Ouest
INRA, UMR BAGAP, INRA-ESA-Agrocampus Ouest
5 : Université de Rennes 1, UMR Ecobio
Université de Rennes 1, UMR Ecobio
6 : INRA, UMR IGEPP, Agrocampus Ouest, Université de Rennes 1, Université Bretagne-Loire
INRA, UMR IGEPP, Agrocampus Ouest, Université de Rennes 1, Université Bretagne-Loire
7 : INRA, UMR IGEPP, Agrocampus Ouest, Université de Rennes 1, Université Bretagne-Loire
IGEPP, Agrocampus Ouest, Université de Rennes 1, Université Bretagne-Loire
8 : INRA, UMR 1065 Santé et Agroécologie du Vignoble, ISVV, Université de Bordeaux, Bordeaux Sciences Agro
INRA, UMR 1065 Santé et Agroécologie du Vignoble, ISVV, Université de Bordeaux, Bordeaux Sciences Agro

Agroecology, based on optimizing ecological functions, such as biological pest control, to replace the use of synthetic agrochemicals is a promising way to reduce the ecological footprint of agriculture while maintaining commodity production. Organic farming is often considered an ideal prototype of agroecology, but the performance of organic farming in terms of the ecological functions it provides remains poorly explored. Using two distinct meta-analyses, we assessed the effect of organic farming on the potential for biological control (parasitism or predation rates and soil-suppressiveness) and pest infestation (weeds, animal pests and pathogens). The two meta-analyses used data extracted respectively from 43 and 134 studies comparing organic and conventional farming systems. Our results show that organic farming enhances overall biological pest control potential compared to conventional cropping systems. Moreover, we found that organic farming had lower levels of pathogen infestation, similar levels of animal pest infestation and much higher levels of weed infestation. Our study provides evidence that organic farming can enhance pest control and suggests that organic farming offers a way to reduce the use of synthetic pesticide for the management of animal pests and pathogens without increasing their levels of infestation.


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