How can you conserve the biodiversity on your farm? First, let us stop using very toxic chemicals that kill all living organisms on your farm. The Standard includes a list of prohibited agrochemicals, which are all very toxic chemicals. The list of prohibited is available as an “attachment file” of this course. Please download it for your use.

Let’s look at a farm in Indonesia. This farm has posted the list on his farm to always check whether a chemical is prohibited or not. The list has been translated to the local language so that the farmer can easily understand. 

Once you eliminate the use of prohibited agrochemicals, let us now start reducing the use of other toxic chemicals. The World Health Organization has categorized some chemicals into Class I and Class II. These two groups of chemicals are very toxic. These products carry either red or yellow labels on the package. If you are using chemicals with red or yellow label, let us find ways to reduce – and eventually eliminate --their use. 

In trying to reduce the use of agrochemicals, we need alternative methods to control pests. These methods are called Integrated Pest Management.

Healthy crops are the key to preventing disease and pests. You can make your crop healthy and strong by regular pruning, fertilization, removing fruits that are affected by disease, sourcing other varieties of your crop, and with other methods.

You can use techniques to control pests without using chemicals, such as insect traps and insect repellent made of natural ingredients.. Use of fire could be also considered as an alternative method in the case of leafcutter-ant infestations.  

There are optional videos on the examples of Integrated Pest Management, or IPM techniques. There are videos on IPM techniques of cacao in English, tea in Bahasa Indonesia or coffee in Spanish. Please click the link of the video you are interested in watching.    

If you keep on using the same agrochemical repeatedly, harvest after harvest, the pest develops resistance and you need to use increasingly larger amounts of chemicals. In order to avoid this occurrence, it is important that you rotate agrochemicals.

Look at these photos of machinery poorly maintained. If you use such equipment that is leaking or over-spraying, you will end up using more chemicals than necessary. It is important to maintain your machinery to ensure that you are precisely applying appropriate quantities.

There is a type of crops called “transgenic.” These are crops whose genetics are modified in laboratories. For example, genetics of a certain crop could be modified so that the crop would not be killed by a particular herbicide. You can consequently use very strong chemicals and your crop will not die. There are many unknown effects of transgenic crops on the environment. Cultivation of transgenic crops is prohibited under the Sustainable Agriculture Standard.

Take a look at this image of a farmer’s record of agrochemical use. By keeping records of your applications as part of a documentation system, you can keep track of how much chemicals you are using and seek ways to reduce the quantity gradually.

For each application of agrochemicals, you can record the date, product, location and area , dosage and quantity, operator and equipment used.

The same procedure applies to post-harvest application.  This is when agrochemicals are applied after the crop has left the field.  These two images show fungicides being applied to both bananas and pineapple, for example. Let us record the application so that we can analyze it and seek ways to reduce the use of chemicals over time.