Since the Industrial Revolution, pesticides have been making great contributions to supporting agricultural production and to protecting human and animal health. With the increase of global populations, the demand for food is increasing, and with the intensified global change and increased resistance of pesticides againts pests, human’s dependence on pesticides has intensified. The negative effects of pesticides strengthens our understanding on Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring". In a word, pesticide is a “double-edged sword” that have ecological two-sidedness. However, with people's increasing environmental awareness and expectations for safe food, we have to pay attention to the pesticide risk to biodiversity, human health and environments. 

       Global biodiversity experiments and practices have concluded that crop diversification, crop-domestic animal co-culture, and crop-edible fungi co-culture can suppress pests (including invertebrate herbivores, plant pathogens and weeds) and logically in turn reduce pesticide risk.

      Crop diversification is the dominant type of cultivated species diversity that is practiced globally, and crop diversification (e.g., intercropping, trap crops, border crops, flower strips, ground cover vegetation) is the most popular approach of agrobiodiversity in agroecosystems. For example, more diverse habitats provide predators and parasitoids with more resources, increasing the abundance and diversity of natural enemies and therefore leading to more efficient control of herbivorous pest populations.

      Crop-domestic animal co-cultures have been developed in southeast Asia for two thousands years (e.g., rice-fish co-culture) and have been an emerging industry in Europe (e.g., crop-livestock co-culture). Importantly, co-cultures of crops and domestic animals (e.g., poultry and livestock) has become an effective approach to benefiting African economics. Due to multiple advantages, southeast Asia has been gradually extending rice-aquatic animal co-culture. For example, rice-fish co-cultures, recognized as one of FAO's Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems, have become a typical Asian agriculture. Domestic animals can directly prey on pests in crops. Also, local environment increases biological pest control by predators. For instance, higher water levels and adjacent ditches can improve the habitat for predatory spiders, as evidenced by increasing movement, predation and mating probability in rice-fish co-culture systems.

      Crop-edible fungus co-cultures have become a promising emerging way to increase food safety and farm income in China, Goa and Egypt, and has been practiced in some regions of the United States since the 1990s. In Goa, farmers voluntarily integrated edible fungi (e.g., mushroom) in grain and orchard systems to increase incomes. Intercropping of maize and mushrooms, grapes and Polyporaceae fungi, rice and Auricularia fungi, and mulberry and Morchellaceae fungi, has become a potential industry in China. When edible fungi are introduced into primary cropping systems, the pests in edible fungi can provide alternative prey for predators in primary crops. Also, edible fungi can increase crop resistance against pests in primary crops.

References:

Wan NF, Fu L, Dainese M, Kiær LP, Hu YQ, Xin FF, Goulson D, Woodcock BA, Vanbergen AJ, Spurgeon DJ, Shen S, Scherber C, 2025. Pesticides have negative effects on non-target organisms. Nature Communications, in press.

 Wan NF, Dainese M, Wang YQ, Loreau M, 2024. Cascading social-ecological benefits of biodiversity for agriculture. Current Biology, 34: R587-R603.

 Wan NF, Fu L, Dainese M, Hu YQ, Kiær LP, Isbell F, Scherber C, 2022. Plant genetic diversity affects multiple trophic levels and trophic interactions. Nature Communications, 13: 7312.

 Wan NF, Zheng XR, Fu LW, Kiær LP, Zhang Z, Chaplin-Kramer R, Dainese M, Tan J, Qiu SY, Hu YQ, Tian WD, Nie M, Ju RT, Deng JY, Jiang JX, Cai YM, Li B, 2020. Global synthesis of effects of plant species diversity on trophic groups and interactions. Nature Plants, 6: 503-510.