The 2008 crash has left all the established economic doctrines - equilibrium models, real business cycles, disequilibria models - in disarray. Part of the problem is due to Smith’s "veil of ignorance": individuals unknowingly pursue society’s interest and, as a result, have no clue as to the macroeconomic effects of their actions: witness the Keynes and Leontief multipliers, the concept of value added, fiat money, Engel’s law and technical progress, to name but a few of the macrofoundations of microeconomics. A good viewpoint to take bearings anew lies in comparing the post-Great Depression institutions with those emerging from Thatcher and Reagan’s economic policies: deregulation, exogenous vs. endoge- nous money, shadow banking vs. Volcker’s Rule. Very simply, the banks, whose lending determined deposits after Roosevelt, and were a public service became private enterprises whose deposits determine lending. These underlay the great moderation preceding 2006, and the subsequent crash.

The Economic Institutions of Capitalism

Agricultural intensification has resulted in a simplification of agricultural landscapes by the expansion of agricultural land, enlargement of field size and removal of non-crop habitat. These changes are considered to be an important cause of the rapid decline in farmland biodiversity, with the remaining biodiversity concentrated in field edges and non-crop habitats. The simplification of landscape composition and the decline of biodiversity may affect the functioning of natural pest control because non-crop habitats provide requisites for a broad spectrum of natural enemies, and the exchange of natural enemies between crop and non-crop habitats is likely to be diminished in landscapes dominated by arable cropland. In this review, we test the hypothesis that natural pest control is enhanced in complex patchy landscapes with a high proportion of non-crop habitats as compared to simple large-scale landscapes with little associated non-crop habitat. In 74% and 45% of the studies reviewed, respectively, natural enemy populations were higher and pest pressure lower in complex landscapes versus simple landscapes. Landscape-driven pest suppression may result in lower crop injury, although this has rarely been documented. Enhanced natural enemy activity was associated with herbaceous habitats in 80% of the cases (e.g. fallows, field margins), and somewhat less often with wooded habitats (71%) and landscape patchiness (70%). The similar contributions of these landscape factors suggest that all are equally important in enhancing natural enemy populations. We conclude that diversified landscapes hold most potential for the conservation of biodiversity and sustaining the pest control function.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2006.3530

Sustainable pest regulation in agricultural landscapes: a review on landscape composition, biodiversity and natural pest control

Theoretical developments are helping us to comprehend the basic parameters governing the dynamics of the interactions between generalist predators and their many pest and nonpest prey. In practice, however, inter- and intraspecific interactions between generalist predators, and between the predators and their prey, within multispecies systems under the influence of rapidly changing biotic and abiotic variables are difficult to predict. We discuss trade-offs between the relative merits of specialists and generalists that allow both to be effective, and often complementary, under different circumstances. A review of manipulative field studies showed that in approximately 75% of cases, generalist predators, whether single species or species assemblages, reduced pest numbers significantly. Techniques for manipulating predator numbers to enhance pest control at different scales are discussed. We now need to find ways of disentangling the factors influencing positive and negative interactions within natural enemy communities in order to optimize beneficial synergies leading to pest control.

Can generalist predators be effective biocontrol agents

The UK has passed legislation that introduces the world’s first long-term legally binding framework to tackle the dangers of climate change (The Climate Change Act 20084). The act requires Government to set carbon budgets, which are limits on greenhouse gas emissions in the UK for consecutive five year periods. 
Models analysed in IPCC AR4 have a range of 0-60% for an AMOC decrease over the next 100 years. The RAPID-WATCH 26˚N observations provide the only continuous measurements of the AMOC strength and vertical structure, and are thus a vital monitoring tool for this key climate variable'.
Analysis of the PSMSL data set, reviewed by scientific panels such as the IPCC, inform studies of impacts of climate change on both national and international levels (e.g. UK Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership (MCCIP), UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP), UK Foresight Flood and Coastal Defence Review, Charting Progress and Charting Progress 2, IPCC Working Group II).

Climate change impacts

More than six decades after the onset of wide-scale commercial use of synthetic pesticides and more than fifty years after Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, pesticides, particularly insecticides, arguably remain the most influential pest management tool around the globe. Nevertheless, pesticide use is still a controversial issue and is at the regulatory forefront in most countries. The older generation of insecticide groups has been largely replaced by a plethora of novel molecules that exhibit improved human and environmental safety profiles. However, the use of such compounds is guided by their short-term efficacy; the indirect and subtler effects on their target species, namely arthropod pest species, have been neglected. Curiously, comprehensive risk assessments have increasingly explored effects on nontarget species, contrasting with the majority of efforts focused on the target arthropod pest species. The present review mitigates this shortcoming by hierarchically exploring within an ecotoxicology fram...

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Pesticide-Induced Stress in Arthropod Pests for Optimized Integrated Pest Management Programs

Conventional agriculture is based on a high level of chemical inputs such as pesticides and fertilisers, leading to serious environmental impacts, health risks and loss of biodiversity in agrosystems. The reduction of pesticide use is a priority for intensively sprayed agricultural systems such as orchards. The preservation and promotion of biodiversity within orchards and their boundaries is therefore an issue to explore. Indeed, orchard systems contain high plant diversity and perennial multi-strata designs that provide wealthy resources and habitats to living communities such as beneficial organisms. Orchards thus offer favourable areas to maintain food-webs within the agrosystem, provided that favourable situations are not altered by cultural practices such as applying an excess of pesticides. Here, we analysed literature on the effects of the manipulation of plant diversity and habitats on the control of pests by arthropod and bird communities in apple, pear and peach orchards. Many investigations focus on the role of plant management to enhance biodiversity in orchards but only 22 research reports presenting 30 case studies were dedicated to the study of the ecosystem service provided by plant diversity for orchard pest control. The underlying mechanisms were seldom demonstrated, and the tested grass covers and tree assemblages aimed at favouring either the beneficial complex or only some beneficial species to control one or a few pests. The effect of plant management on pest control was mostly positive (16 cases) or null (9), but also negative in some cases (5). This finding reveals the difficulties of identifying selected plants or plant assemblages for the control of key pests. We conclude that further research is needed to identify the processes involved on different scales for biological control. Orchard systems should be re-designed to optimise ecosystem services provided by biodiversity.

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00886515/document

Biodiversity and pest management in orchard systems. A review

Role of hedgerows and ground cover management on arthropod populations in pear orchards

Biodiversity and pest management in orchard systems

The role of natural enemies on the population dynamics of the rosy apple aphid, Dysaphis plantaginea Passerini (Hemiptera: Aphididae) in organic apple orchards in south-eastern France

Recent European incentive policies clearly targeted decreasing pesticide use in all agricultural systems as a key option to reduce environmental hazards and health risks. To reduce pesticide use is challenging in orchards where pesticides are recurrently applied to control numerous pests and diseases, but crucial to improve fruit production sustainability. Agricultural research has provided alternatives to chemical control for the management of a single pest or disease, but has very seldom addressed the design of overall sustainable strategies aiming at reducing pesticide use. New insights permitted by system approaches are now developing. Here, we report the level of pesticide use and the agri-environmental performances of three protection systems of apple orchards surveyed from 2005 to 2008: (1) conventional, (2) low-input and (3) organic farming. To assess the significance of the cultivar in decreasing pesticide use, these protection systems were combined with three cultivars differing in scab susceptibility: ‘Ariane’ (Vf-resistant), ‘Melrose’ (low-susceptibility) and ‘Golden Delicious’ (susceptible). Thus, nine ‘management × cultivar’ apple orchard systems were assessed. The level of pesticide use was the highest in conventional ‘Golden Delicious’ and in ‘Golden Delicious’ plots whatever the protection system. A 43–56% decrease in pesticide use was observed in ‘Ariane’ and ‘Melrose’ in both low-input and organic farming protection systems compared to conventional ‘Golden Delicious’ as reference. Only low-input ‘Melrose’ and low-input ‘Ariane’ systems achieved a level of yield and fruit damages similar to the corresponding conventional cultivars under reduced pesticide use, also permitting reduced environmental impacts. But even the low-input ‘Melrose’ least pesticide-dependant system was far from being pesticide-free, suggesting that current straight-designed mono-clone orchards are hardly appropriate to drastically reduce pesticide use and that the range of commercial apple cultivars should be renewed to offer more robust cultivars.

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Sylvaine Simon

Papers

Biodiversity and pest management in orchard systems. A review

Role of hedgerows and ground cover management on arthropod populations in pear orchards

Biodiversity and pest management in orchard systems

The role of natural enemies on the population dynamics of the rosy apple aphid, Dysaphis plantaginea Passerini (Hemiptera: Aphididae) in organic apple orchards in south-eastern France

Pesticide use in current and innovative apple orchard systems