Periodic Reporting for period 1 - FORTUNA (Future innovation for pesticide use reduction in agriculture)
Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2025-06-30
Agricultural production in Europe relies on the use of chemical-synthetic pesticides to control pests and ensure the production of high-quality food and feed. Adverse external effects of intensive agriculture are exacerbating the loss of biodiversity, the deterioration of water quality and negative impacts on human health. To-date, Integrated Pest management (IPM) and in particular direct control tactics, are well developed. However, the adoption of combinations of tactics in a system approach, which can lead to a reduction of pesticide use, is still lacking in the farming community.
The objective of FORTUNA is to address future challenges for agriculture and in particular, pest control, in the light of reducing the overall risk and use of chemical pesticides, and the use of more hazardous pesticides by 50% by 2030 (F2F Strategy). By improving the understanding of the barriers, drivers and knowledge gaps that affect the uptake of research results, and by identifying research needs, FORTUNA responds to the ambition to pave the way towards agricultural production without the use of chemical pesticides in the long term.
The specific objectives are to:
- build a large stakeholder network with a wide range of concerned stakeholders along the food and supply chain to gather and evaluate practical insights and to facilitate an exchange of knowledge across Europe promoting a reduction in pesticide use and risk,
- map and identify innovative solutions available to farmers to-date as well as challenges for their uptake,
- improve understanding of main knowledge gaps as well as of drivers and barriers by analysing solutions and combinations of methods for their wide spread adoption as well as in the landscape context and the context of climate change and their readiness to go beyond the Farm to Fork targets for chemical pesticides
- identify research needs for further reductions or phasing out chemical pesticides in agriculture.
Recommendations for future research priorities to reduce or phase out the use of chemical pesticides in agriculture will explore natural science research, innovations in knowledge and information systems, and public policies to support the transition as well as the upstream and downstream supply chains, seeking to develop a Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) that reaches towards a pesticide-free agriculture.
The objective of FORTUNA is to address future challenges for agriculture and in particular, pest control, in the light of reducing the overall risk and use of chemical pesticides, and the use of more hazardous pesticides by 50% by 2030 (F2F Strategy). By improving the understanding of the barriers, drivers and knowledge gaps that affect the uptake of research results, and by identifying research needs, FORTUNA responds to the ambition to pave the way towards agricultural production without the use of chemical pesticides in the long term.
The specific objectives are to:
- build a large stakeholder network with a wide range of concerned stakeholders along the food and supply chain to gather and evaluate practical insights and to facilitate an exchange of knowledge across Europe promoting a reduction in pesticide use and risk,
- map and identify innovative solutions available to farmers to-date as well as challenges for their uptake,
- improve understanding of main knowledge gaps as well as of drivers and barriers by analysing solutions and combinations of methods for their wide spread adoption as well as in the landscape context and the context of climate change and their readiness to go beyond the Farm to Fork targets for chemical pesticides
- identify research needs for further reductions or phasing out chemical pesticides in agriculture.
Recommendations for future research priorities to reduce or phase out the use of chemical pesticides in agriculture will explore natural science research, innovations in knowledge and information systems, and public policies to support the transition as well as the upstream and downstream supply chains, seeking to develop a Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) that reaches towards a pesticide-free agriculture.
In an extensive and systematic literature review, FORTUNA collected and evaluated the state-of the art of crop protection techniques and methods based on their agronomic and socio-economic performance. A scoring system has been developed to evaluate the innovation potential of the methods and strategies retrieved from the literature review for arable crops, perennial crops and open field vegetables. The individual findings are evaluated using a differentiated weighting of key descriptors of crop protection methods. Potential innovation cases (PICs), i.e. robust, effective and ready to use control strategies, were identified. The selected studies focus on practical solutions for which measurable effectiveness data are available, especially when compared with conventional systems. Beyond descriptive information, the activity also collected semi-quantitative information by applying the FORTUNA score.
Those results will provide the basis for the further analyses with the aim of gaining a more in-depth understanding of the drivers and barriers for successful implementation of crop protection strategies. Furthermore, the results will be scrutinized for their fitness to contribute to a significant reduction of pesticide use and risk in coherence with the F2F-Strategy and to omit pesticide use completely.
Those results will provide the basis for the further analyses with the aim of gaining a more in-depth understanding of the drivers and barriers for successful implementation of crop protection strategies. Furthermore, the results will be scrutinized for their fitness to contribute to a significant reduction of pesticide use and risk in coherence with the F2F-Strategy and to omit pesticide use completely.
FORTUNA has created a systematic overview of state of the art of individual pest control techniques as well as IPM strategies for different pests, crop sectors and climate conditions in Europe enabling the development of future strategies for pesticide use reduction. The mapping of solutions in combination with the semi-quantitative information of the scoring system ensures a detailed overview of the availability and geographical distribution of innovative crop protection methods for different crop-pest-combinations. First results indicate that strategies for weed control are well studied across the three cropping sectors with a high percentage of available and reliable control methods. Results for the control of fungal diseases as well as insect pests show a good selection of reliable control measures for individual crops such as fungal control in cereals or insect pest control in apple orchards. However, methods used to control fungal diseases and insect pest across all cropping sectors, but especially in open field vegetables, show a higher percentage of methods that need further development. While the main pest categories (weeds, fungal diseases, and insect pests), are generally well covered in the research literature, fewer results are available for other pests including nematodes, bacteria, viruses, and mites.
This integrated knowledge base will enable the identification of PICs, contextualized within the specific production systems and target regions, and tailored to specific pest type. Furthermore, the identified IPM strategies and individual tactics are evaluated based on their relevance for a 50% reduction of use and risks as well as a zero-pesticide scenario. Knowledge gaps are identified as well as drivers and barriers for IPM. A risk analysis is carried out for pests to establish in Europe or extent their presence based on different climate change scenarios and relevant mitigation tactics was identified. Methods used to investigate pesticide use reductions are analyzed as well as existing indicators to measure use reductions.
This integrated knowledge base will enable the identification of PICs, contextualized within the specific production systems and target regions, and tailored to specific pest type. Furthermore, the identified IPM strategies and individual tactics are evaluated based on their relevance for a 50% reduction of use and risks as well as a zero-pesticide scenario. Knowledge gaps are identified as well as drivers and barriers for IPM. A risk analysis is carried out for pests to establish in Europe or extent their presence based on different climate change scenarios and relevant mitigation tactics was identified. Methods used to investigate pesticide use reductions are analyzed as well as existing indicators to measure use reductions.