Concept of pest

The definition of pest can be as general as it is defined by ^{Selfa and Anento (1997}) with an anthropocentric sense, pointing out that man applies it to everything that affects him, or in its shortest and most accurate meaning for the agricultural sector, to any annoying arthropod (^{Romero, 2004}a). The ^{FAO (2016)} defines the term pest as “any plant or animal species, race or biotype, or pathogen agent harmful to plants or plant products”. It is estimated that the losses in global agricultural production from pests fluctuate between 20 and 40 %, causing economic reductions of billions of dollars each year. In addition, the FAO foresees the global need to produce 60 % more foods for the sustenance of a larger population in the whole world. By 2050, agriculture must continue to supply 80 % of the foods in the world, and must reduce the losses of countryside products caused by crop pests; therefore, it is indispensable to satisfy the future needs of foods (^{FAO, 2011}). In México, more than 80 % of the agricultural and livestock production units complain of the high costs of inputs and services; 78.2 % report losses due to climate causes, pests and diseases (^{INEGI, 2014}).

Agricultural development

Conventional agriculture represents a practice of obtaining foods whose process, when compared with the time of appearance of man on Earth, would represent only 0.5 % of the time of the history of humanity. That is, during most of human being’s history, he fed himself, dressed himself and covered his basic needs without practicing agriculture. In fact, even with the birth of agriculture and with just empirical knowledge about irrigation, animal traction and organic fertilizers, great civilizations developed (^{Turrent-Fernández and Cortés-Flores, 2004}). Agriculture as we know it, based mostly on the massive application of agrichemicals and the use of improved cultivars of high yield potential, would have recently made its appearance; only one instant of the history of humanity on this planet (^{Sarandón and Flores, 2014}). However, during this “small lapse of time” when scientific knowledge has been applied and the “wisdom” of agriculture has resulted in a series of problems of such magnitude, this casts doubts on the capacity to feed future generations (^{Vega and Trujillo, 1989}; ^{Holt-Giménez and Altieri, 2013}).

Contemporary history of the sustainable management of pests

The relatively new concept and old millenary practice of Sustainable Management of Pests, which is based on the harmonious combination of different strategies for the control of agricultural pests (^{Flint and van den Bosch, 1981}), has recently made a comeback as a “fashionable” concept and has also been called Integrated Pest Management (IPM), which is constituted by the use of resources that influence the conservation and space-time availability of other resources (sustainable development), the ecological, socioeconomic, cultural, religious, political values, and the decisions and their consequences (^{Badii et al., 2007}; ^{Romero, 2004}a). Until the beginning of the 20^th century, these practices focused on strategies of biological, cultural, chemical and mixed control had been considered the knowledge of the interaction between plants and animals, with a tendency toward sustainability. On the one hand, these practices were essential due to the scarcity of chemical products, partly resolved by the Green Revolution² in the middle of the 20^th century, as well as by the reduced cultivation areas of farmers in this time (^{Pichardo-González, 2006}). However, they were also possible thanks to the communication between extension workers and producers of this time (^{Romero, 2004b}).

Pest management and extension work in México

Since the 1970s and until the 1990s, the Mexican government implemented an extension work and agricultural technology transference system. The Ministry of Agriculture and Hydraulic Resources (Secretaría de Agricultura y Recursos Hidráulicos³, SARH) delegated the extension work through the Directorship of Agricultural Extension Work System and the research through the National Institute of Agricultural Research (Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Agrícolas, INIA) which had an efficient technology transference program with 25 000 extension workers (^{McMahon and Valdés, 2011}), as well as having a source of feedback and communication between producers and agronomic engineers from the whole country (^{Romero, 2004}b). It is hard to believe that now, with a higher offer from the market of chemical products and even organic, the free trade of agricultural inputs and the increase in communication systems (99 % of the production units use cell phones: ^{INEGI, 2014}), in addition to government backing (SAGARPA and Financiera Rural) and yields, field workers continue being producers of low and medium scale despite improving their technology, most of them with less than 20 ha per farmer (^{INEGI, 2014}), and they continue opting for the use of a reduced number of alternatives for pest control, based still mostly in the application of chemical pesticides driven by the green revolution, without nearly any training, monitoring or organization between producers, governments and specialists⁴. Throughout the world, agriculture operates in a market that is increasingly more open, affected by the climate, the demand, the supplies, the competition, and prioritizing profit above social need (^{Devine et al., 2008}); all of this, in addition to the adoption of production strategies and livelihoods imported from foreign farmers with much larger land areas, has been decreasing the productivity of the Mexican countryside and the regional development of agricultural zones in the country, promoting migration to the city or abroad in search for better development opportunities.

Pests and their control in México

The beginning of the 20^th century marked a peak in the development of science and technology in humanity that revolutionized our relationship with nature. Among the achievements, a huge chemical arsenal was defined that ensured, at least in the short term, the increase in harvests. Currently, even though synthetic pesticides represent one of the principal and most effective weapons for the management of agricultural pests, these provoke high economic costs, environmental contamination, decrease of beneficial organisms and wild species, intoxications, negative effects on appliers and people related with their management and development of resistance from the pests (^{García-Gutiérrez and Rodríguez-Meza, 2012}). The pesticides used are characterized by being toxic and of broad spectrum, affecting human health, contaminating underground water currents and acting negatively on the different species of beneficial organisms, among which there are natural enemies such as parasitoids, predators, entomopathogens and pollinators (^{García, 1997}; ^{Devine et al., 2008}; ^{Gutiérrez-Ramírez et al., 2013}).

The problematic for grain and vegetable crops is formed by the different types of diseases, pests and weeds which harm the seed, the plant and the fruits, which have been able to be made innocuous with the application of pesticides (^{García-Gutiérrez and Rodríguez-Meza, 2012}). More than 70 % of the pesticides utilized are used by 10 states of the country and correspond in general terms to herbicides, followed by insecticides and fungicides; among the insecticides, the most frequently used are organophosphorus, particularly parathion methyl, metamidophos and malathion (^{Albert, 2004}). At the same time, the countryside demands backing for the intensive farming of land with family work and the recognition that, with access to technological innovation, this modality can be more efficient than large-scale agriculture. For this purpose, there are more environmentally safe alternatives, such as biopesticides; among these, microorganisms and pathogenic agents of insects are contemplated, such as viruses, rickettsia, fungi, bacteria, nematodes and protozoa, as well insecticides of plant origin that include at least 12 families of plant species (^{Nava-Pérez et al., 2012}). Because of this, it is necessary to contemplate again the goal of food self-sufficiency that, in addition to its evident advantages for peasants, also strengthens national sovereignty (^{Campos, 2000}).

Particularities of the Mexican farmland

In México, placing farmers as the axis of a new national sustainable agriculture project is the greatest challenge of this century; more than 50 % of the producers in the country only have primary school studies and more than 70 % are older than 45 years (^{INEGI, 2014}). This, as mentioned by ^{Campos (2000}), does not mean renouncing to a macroeconomic stability or to their competent participation in the global market, from the perspective of a “new” third path for economic development, but rather it means ceasing to favor the financial aspect over the productive, as well as ceasing to consider globalization as a limitation to development; and the author adds that these same principles are applicable to the Mexican countryside, when suggesting a broad policy of integral agricultural and livestock promotion that implies rural development together with peasants. Encouraging the productive reactivation of small communities starts by guaranteeing their self-sufficiency and can be supported by complementing the agricultural and livestock activities with the artisanal and small-scale manufacturing for the production of basic goods. Finally, to reach a greater agreement between researchers and the offices and institutions involved in the detection and control of pests, ^{Troyo-Diéguez et al. (2006}) propose: a) the creation of inter-institutional, regional, and international committees for the sampling of pests and analysis of relevant factors for the safety status of agro ecosystems; and b) for the elaboration and development of specific projects for the immediate and long-term solution of phytosanitary problems of common interest to be local, national or international in scope.

Strategies for sustainable management of agricultural pests

The transition toward sustainable agrarian development requires an initial approach to the state of knowledge and the sensitization of actors in relation to problems of their local surroundings (^{Rivas et al., 2012}). The goal is in being able to identify, adjust and implement these techniques of sustainable agriculture to adapt to the local requirements and to stimulate and help farmers to implement the ideas through training, feedback and support tools. A program of sustainable management is developed to respond to the particular conditions of a place, an area or a region with common characteristics of their own. This is about agricultural ecosystems that share characteristics such as crops and plant varieties and climate conditions, in addition to other aspects like local agricultural practices, pest species and their natural enemies present, and the socioeconomic conditions of the farmer and the market. There is no “wild card” program, designed for a crop and a place, which can be used anywhere without important adjustments. With this aim, it is essential to perform some tests and experimental studies in the local conditions, before adopting some program for its successful application.

The concept of Sustainable Management or Integrated Management was based, from its beginning, on combining the advantages of chemical and biological control (^{Bartlett, 1964}); recently, it has been evolving to improve its effectiveness, broadening the repertoire of strategies to be used to attain pest control without causing damage to the crops. We have practically returned to the use of the knowledge that the system (ecologic and farmland ecosystems) provides us, and, in turn, we have reconsidered about the biological equilibrium present before the establishment of a cultivation area. Although both kinds of reasoning are not enough to maintain a farm field, they are the basis of the development of sustainable cultivation in the long term. However, we should not forget sociocultural and economic aspects, since it is of no use to have a sustainable countryside with sustained economic insufficiency of the farmers, which is why it is necessary to specify that the responsibility in establishing a Sustainable Pest Management program cannot fall only on the farmers; it should be supported by other instances such as the government, with programs initiatives for legal control of pests, dissemination of information of cultural control, support with biological control projects, incentives to agrichemical producing companies from specific advice to producers (Escuela Agrícola en el Campo⁵, ^{FAO, 2004}), and by the academic sector which in this sense should act as a liaison with the development and dissemination of studies that allow producers to share not only their experience, but also their cultivation fields for monitoring and experimentation, as well as generating a direct line for feedback on the application of scientific results developed (for which the development of more efficient and environmentally friendly pesticides is not dismissed, and the rescue of local knowledge, as for example, studies by ^{Gómez et al., 2000}; ^{Trujillo-Vázquez and García-Barrios, 2001}; ^{Gutiérrez-Ramírez et al., 2013}). All of this obviously coordinating all of those involved: government, academia and farmer; with the purpose of having a regulated program, adapted to the local conditions and specific problems, in addition to a culture of permanent evaluation that allows its continuous improvement.

Perspectives

Food, health, quality education, housing and cultural realization are the minimum obligation of the country to its citizens. A nation that is harmonious with its biological and cultural diversity, less unequal and more just, could be less vulnerable to the policies that rule the world economy. The analysis of these aspects from a complex and multidisciplinary point of view will allow understanding the viability of the project and the strategies to be followed to begin a program made to measure, of sustainable pest management.