Sustainable agriculture

Paraquat supports sustainable tea in Vietnam

Tea is a thriving crop in Vietnam and farmers rely on paraquat for a weed control system that reduces soil erosion.  Much of the tea crop is grown on sloping land prone to losing very significant amounts of soil each year.
Results of research conducted by the Northern Mountainous Agriculture and Forestry Science Institute show that using paraquat for weed control instead of hand hoeing can save huge amounts of soil. Paraquat is more effective than glyphosate because it leaves roots intact to anchor the soil.
Tea in Vietnam
Tea is an important industry in Vietnam with six million people involved in production, processing and exporting1. Tea is a native plant to the country and has been cultivated for thousands of years. The industry has been experiencing a rapid expansion since the mid 1990s. Yields have also improved, more than doubling over this period, and now approach the best in Asia2. Exports of tea are increasing and efforts are being made to improve the international image of Vietnamese tea. Vietnamese black tea is generally used in blends.

Quest for sustainable oil palm

Oil palm is the world’s leading vegetable oil crop. As a foodstuff, palm oil is believed to have several important benefits, particularly in lowering the risk of heart disease. As a very high yielding crop, it has become a major feedstock for biodiesel production. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil has been established to ensure that as production rises environmental issues such as biodiversity and soil erosion are addressed. Integrated pest management (IPM) approaches are widely used and ensure that crops are protected in a sustainable way.
Paraquat has a key role in IPM systems. Although it is termed a non-selective herbicide, paraquat is safe to spray around crops such as oil palm. Paraquat is strongly adsorbed and deactivated on contact with the soil. It cannot move to roots and be taken up into plants and it cannot leach. Mature bark is a very effective barrier to paraquat and even if small amounts land on leaves there is little or no crop damage because paraquat is not systemic.

Other facts about oil palm

Read more about the use of paraquat in oil palm here
Read an in-depth article about oil palm cropping here

Paraquat is very fast acting and rainfast.

FAO calls for sustainable crop production intensification

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has begun to implement its strategy for Sustainable Crop Production Intensification (SCPI). By 2050, FAO estimates that to feed each person on the planet there will only be 0.16 ha of agricultural land available, compared 0.26 ha in 1999 and 0.4 ha in 1960, hence the need to intensify production. The goal of SCPI is to support countries and their farmers to grow more food and the focus will be on developing technologies and policies that will ensure sustainability1,2.
Conservation Agriculture
In practice, this will be achieved by encouraging the global development of the approach to farming known as Conservation Agriculture. This is quickly gaining ground as the best means of securing a stable and sustainable food supply for the world’s population of 9 billion estimated for 2050.
Conservation Agriculture integrates the best appropriate technologies to work within three main pillars which support the overall concept. These all acknowledge the importance of creating and maintaining a healthy soil.

Integrated weed management in no-till systems

Integrated weed management and no-till are advanced agronomic tools with common aims to improve efficiency and profitabilty, while reducing the environmental impact of crop production. Although advanced in concept, these tools are straightforward and can be adapted for use in all cropping systems, from highly mechanised ones to subsistence farming, all around the world.
Tillage is a well proven means of controlling weeds, so are other methods good enough to use in an integrated approach to weed management in no-till systems? This article examines how farmers can reap the rewards of both techniques together.

Farmers around the world know just how hard it is to control weeds. They tend to come back with a vengance, especially when the many elements causing weed problems have not been appreciated and addressed. Aiming to manage weeds rather than control them is not only more realistic, but if Integrated Weed Management (IWM) is applied properly, it can reduce costs, protect the soil, and support pest and disease control.
No-till systems also provide economic and environmental advantages. However, in no-till, the traditional means of weed management by ploughing to prepare a field for cropping is not used.

Weeds and weed control

Paraquat is used to control a huge range of weeds worldwide, but to control weeds effectively and sustainably it is important to understand them.
Why does a plant become a weed? How can different types of weeds be described? What are the features of weeds and the way they grow which can be targeted by herbicides for successful control?

Paraquat and sustainable agriculture

Paraquat and sustainable agriculture, by Richard H. Bromilow
In his paper “Paraquat and sustainable agriculture,” author Richard H. Bromilow studies the role paraquat plays in supporting sustainable agriculture around the world.
Abstract: Sustainable agriculture is essential for man's survival, especially given our rapidly increasing population. Expansion of agriculture into remaining areas of natural vegetation is undesirable, as this would reduce biodiversity on the planet. Maintaining or indeed improving crop yields on existing farmed land, whether on a smallholder scale or on larger farms, is thus necessary.
One of the limiting factors is often weed control; biological control of weeds is generally of limited use and mechanical control is either often difficult with machinery or very laborious by hand. Thus the use of herbicides has become very important.

No-till and biofuel crops

“America is addicted to oil” as President George W. Bush acknowledged in his 2006 State of the Union Speech. And, it is not just a US problem, nor is the addiction only to oil. Oil, coal and natural gas are the fossil reserves which power our planet, but now the spotlight is on crop biomass to provide a significant alternative source of energy and materials.
No-till farming and paraquat have a vital role to play in producing enough biomass while sustaining food production and protecting the environment.
At present, biofuels are manufactured from the parts of crops otherwise harvested for food, eg grain. This leads to two problems:

Not enough fuel
Potentially not enough food

The yield of fuel – biodiesel or bioethanol – from the oils or starch found in seeds is relatively low. With the economic and environmental motivation to grow more crops for biofuels, in future, they may take up valuable land that should be used for growing food, especially in poor Third World countries. Already, in Mexico the rising price of corn tortillas, a staple food for many poorer people, has been a problem. This has been due to the higher price of US corn, driven-up by the demand for ethanol.
To address both fuel and food issues, it would be much more attractive to use unharvested parts such as corn stover or wheat straw for biofuel production.

Will farming and soil quality collide?

Will farming and soil quality collide?
World Agriculture and the Environment is an important new book addressing the fear that increasing demand for food and fiber is on a “collision course” with soil quality.
This article is in two parts. In Part One, some of the main issues discussed in the book are reviewed. Part Two then explains how more than 40 years of research and practical use have shown that controlling weeds with paraquat can help provide improved and sustainable crop management practices to improve soil quality.
Part One: What ‘World Agriculture and the Environment’ says
In World Agriculture and the Environment authorJason Clay (World Wildlife Fund-US vice president, Center for Conservation Innovation) reviews the production and environmental impact of 21 of the world’s major food commodities. The main threats to the environment posed by crops, fish and meat are identified and explored, as well as the trends that shape those threats.
Major Issues
A fundamental acknowledgement in the book is that low intensity cropping can not support current, let alone future, levels of world population. There are two underlying reasons. First, using more land for farming destroys natural forests and grasslands.

Deactivation of paraquat in the soil environment

Deactivation of the biological activity of paraquat in the soil environment: a review of long-term environmental fate. by Roberts TR, Dyson JS, Lane MC.

In their paper Deactivation of the biological activity of paraquat in the soil environment: a review of long-term environmental fate,” the authors bring together several key environment studies on paraquat in order to analyze and assess its long-term environmental impact. They conclude that:
“These trials have demonstrated that the continued use of paraquat under GAP conditions will have no detrimental effects on either crops or soil-dwelling flora and fauna.”
Abstract:
During the many years of paraquat usage, wide ranges of investigations of its environmental impact have been conducted. Much of this information has been published, but key, long-term field studies have not previously been presented and assessed. The purpose of this review is to bring together and appraise this information. Due to the nature of paraquat residues in soils, the major part (some 99.99%) of a paraquat application that reaches the soil within the typical Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) guidelines is strongly adsorbed to soils of a wide variety of textures. This is in equilibrium with an extremely low concentration in soil solution.

Safety to the environment

Extensive long-term field studies confirm - and governments and regulatory authorities, worldwide, agree - that normal use of paraquat in accordance with the approved label instructions does not cause an unacceptable environmental impact.
These studies have shown that:
Paraquat is inactive in soil
When paraquat residues come into contact with the soil the paraquat active ingredient rapidly becomes adsorbed and strongly bound to clay and organic matter in the soil. It becomes biologically inert and as a result it cannot be taken up by plant roots or other organisms. Paraquat treated soils still maintain an active soil ecosystem with no adverse effects on soil microbes, microorganisms and earthworms. Paraquat cannot be released from the soil or re-activated by the application of water or other agrochemicals.
All agricultural soils, not only those with high clay content, have a high capacity to absorb paraquat.