The research, published in Nature Plants, analysed potential conflicts between pesticide use and productivity or profitability, using data from 946 non-organic, arable, commercial farms in France.
The researchers found no conflict between low pesticide use and either high productivity or high profitability in 77% of the farms. Overall, they estimated that total pesticide use could be reduced by 42% without any negative effects on productivity or profitability in 59% of farms.
Read the paper
here (££) or the report in Euractiv
here.
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