A Review on Pest Management Challenges for Biofuel Crop Production

The "food-versus-fuel"debate is one of main considerations when selecting a bioenergy crop as a feedstock for biofuel production. In order to avoid the use of productive agricultural land (which must be prioritized for food production), marginal lands are eyed for biofuel crop plantations, using "robust"bioenergy crops that can withstand stressful growth conditions. However,the use of marginal lands for large scale bioenergy crop plantations could pose new problems for farmers, specially on the aspect of pest control. Bioenergy crops could reportedly serve as refuge for pests.

In order to prepare for anticipated pest problems that could arise in such situations, researchers from the Centre for Environmental Stress and Adaptation Research (CESAR), University of Melbourne (Australia) reviewed the possible pest management challenges that could be encountered in the cultivation of bioenergy crops in marginal lands. Some of the problems discussed by the researchers in their paper are the biodiversity loss associated with intensification of agriculture in marginal lands, the enhancement of pest numbers, the breakage of links of pests with its natural enemies and the chemical impact of pest control.

Some of the highlights of the review are: (1) Pests will attack biofuel crops despite claims that they might be immune from pests, (2) Landscape heterogeneity provides ecosystem services, including pest suppression, (3) Less toxic pesticides enhance sustainable pest control, and (4) Distribution modeling and related crop pests predict potential pest pressures. The paper is published in the journal, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability (URL above).