Opinion article by Marta Vasconcelos, professor at the Faculty of Biotechnology at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa in Porto.
Revisiting pesticides requires us to think not only about production, but also the entire food system and the associated value chain.
The massive use of pesticides started as a great early success story many decades ago, leading to guaranteed yields in conventional agriculture, non-manual weed control and more predictable, profitable and homogeneous agriculture.
However, this scenario quickly became problematic, as the direct influence of pesticides on biodiversity and human health began to be realized, and its indirect influence on the global evolution of types of crop production systems.
