• • • DLG-Feldtage 2018: Crop Production 2030 – Productivity. Innovations. Strategies.
German farmers are currently faced with a long list of challenges that are impacting on their businesses, according to the president of the DLG (German Agricultural Society), Hubertus Paetow. Addressing agricultural journalists at Neugattersleben, Germany, he said the issues included: resistance to pesticides; approval-related loss of important active ingredients for crop protection; stagnation in breeding progress; loss of biodiversity; problems due to too narrow crop rotations; and new measures aimed at protecting water and soil.
For Paetow, productivity and responsible use of resources were the keys to long-term prospects for crop production. The focus should be on innovative cultivation strategies that integrated efficient and healthy varieties, efficient operating resources, processes and technology. As far as crop protection was concerned, preventative agricultural practices and the use of technical innovations (GPS, sensors and robotics) for mechanical pest management should be strengthened, alongside the use of resistant and tolerant crop varieties.
The DLG president said that in order to shape the future of crop production, a change in direction was now necessary. Last year, the society had put forward its theses on the subject in the publication “Agriculture in 2030”, and that would continue in November when the DLG-Feldtage was held under the theme “Crop production 2030 – Productivity. Innovations. Strategies.”
Source: http://www.dlg.org/news_agriculture.html?detail/2015dlg/1/2/9862
