Translations:Rice/78/en

Crop protection scientists are developing sustainable techniques for managing rice pests. Sustainable pest management is based on four principles: biodiversity, host plant resistance, landscape ecology, and hierarchies in a landscape—from biological to social. Farmers' pesticide applications are often unnecessary. Pesticides may actually induce resurgence of populations of rice pests such as the brown planthopper, both by destroying beneficial insects and by enhancing the pest's reproduction. The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) demonstrated in 1993 that an 87.5% reduction in pesticide use can lead to an overall drop in pest numbers.