Landscape change leads to increased insecticide use in the US

With the loss of natural habitats and the continued growth of cropland which has increasingly simplified the agricultural landscapes in the US Midwest. "When you replace natural habitat with cropland, you tend to get more crop pest problems," says lead author Tim Meehan, University of Wisconsin-Madison associate scientist in the Department of Entomology.

"Two things drive this pattern. As you remove natural habitats you remove habitat for beneficial predatory insects, and when you create more cropland you make a bigger target for pests giving them what they need to survive and multiply." Read more ...

This blog is written by Martin Little, The Global Miller, published and supported by the GFMT Magazine and the International Milling Directory from Perendale Publishers