A Holistic Approach To Controlling Nematodes

Roughly a third of the world’s agricultural soils are already degraded, and if more farmers do not urgently adopt more sustainable farming practices, 90% of soils could be degraded by 2050, leading to greater yield losses. a holistic approach to the control of plant-parasitic nematodes provides a good example of the type of production practices that farmers need to adopt to halt further soil degradation. Denene Erasmus reports.

- Denene Erasmus

Most people tend to underestimate the vital role that soil biodiversity plays in the ecosystem services on which all life on Earth depends.

According to the World Wide Fund for Nature’s ‘Living Planet Report 2020’, up to 90% of living organisms in terrestrial ecosystems, including some pollinators, spend part of their life cycle in soil habitats. In addition, the report says, aside from food production, soil biodiversity provides a vast range of ecosystem functions and services, including soil formation, the retention and purification of water, nutrient cycling and the regulation of greenhouse gases, as well as sustaining plant, animal and human health.

“Without soil biodiversity, terrestrial ecosystems may collapse. Recent research shows that loss of soil biodiversity is considered one of the major soil threats in many regions of the world,” the report states. It suggests that future agricultural systems may need to combine traditional practices, nature-based solutions, and novel technologies such as artificial intelligence, DNA sequencing and microbiome-based precision farming in an effort to conserve and restore degraded soils.

ACTION IS NEEDED NOW

These interventions have to be implemented urgently. During the recent One Earth, Soil & Root Health Forum, hosted virtually in March, J. Erik Fyrwald, group CEO of Syngenta, said that one-third of Earth’s soil was degraded, with 90% predicted to be so by 2050.

Prof Richard Sikora, former head of SoilEcosystem Phytopathology at the University of Bonn, Germany, who spoke during the opening session of the forum, said that, worldwide, the soils of 38% of croplands and 21% of grasslands had been degraded.