How chitosans can help make our agriculture more sustainable, and protect our soils

Last Monday’s Global Biodiversity Report pointed towards agriculture as the number one culprit for the tremendous mass extinction predicted. In the past fifty years, human population has doubled and agricultural production has tripled globally. The Green Revolution has helped in humanity’s struggle to ending hunger, mainly by breeding high yielding elite varieties of our staple crop plants such as wheat, rice, and maize. These, however, can realise their potential only under conditions of optimal fertilization, irrigation, and plant protection. As a consequence, fertilizer consumption has increased about four-fold and pesticide sales about six-fold since 1970. While this allowed food production to not only keep pace with the growing world population but to also reduce under- and malnutrition, it came at a high price: reduced soil fertility, contamination of ground water, loss in biodiversity. And these - in fatal alliance with climate change and global pollution - now threaten the very basis of our survival. ‘Transformative change’ is what the Report demands. In agriculture, this means: less (not no) fertilizers, and less (not no) pesticides. And this is what Plant Biostimulants such as chitosan can deliver: enhanced nutrient efficiency and plant growth promotion, improved stress tolerance and induced disease resistance. Modern, knowledge-based biostimulants which were developed as a result of decades of systematic research - such as second generation chitosans - perform much better and much more reliably than the ‘Plant Strengtheners’ of old. They can be a cornerstone in a sustainable system of Integrated Agriculture, along with modern methods of computer-assisted, satellite- and drone-guided precision farming, drop irrigation, and responsible land use management. At our politicians: It is time to act!