Sustainable Practices For Plant Disease Management In Traditional Farming Systems

Most scientists and many of the world's farmers have abandoned traditional farming practices and systems in an effort to increase production and to improve the efficiency of land and labor use. The resulting "modern" systems largely ignore many of the sustainable pest management practices that have evolved among farmers over centuries. In this book, H. David Thurston catalogs and reviews valuable practices that are in danger of being lost in the modernization process. Ancient farmers developed sustainable agricultural practices, including disease management, that allowed them to produce food and fiber for thousands of years with few outside inputs. Most systems were developed empirically through millennia of trial and error, natural selection, and observation. These proven practices often conserved energy, maintained natural resources, and reduced chemical use. A high level of diversity contributed to making traditional systems stable, resilient, and efficient. Thurston evaluates the sustainability, labor requirements, and external inputs needed for these diverse systems and their management, providing a comprehensive summary of effective traditional agricultural practices for plant disease management.