Pests are one of the greatest and oldest challenges agriculture has faced in feeding our growing population expected to reach 9.7 billion over the next three decades. With the warming of certain areas due to climate change, new geographies now present favorable conditions to insects and pests and encourage greater outbreaks. Furthermore, pests have demonstrated a considerable ability resisting the different chemicals we have used against them. New programs in pest management and new natural alternatives are needed to be able to control the pests and the billion dollar damages they cause every season throughout the world.

Pest resistance happens due to basic Darwinian natural selection. When a pesticide threatens a pest population, most of the individuals will perish, yet, there are always some that have an inheritable trait that helped them survive. Those individuals left, procreate, and their offspring inherit the resistance to that pesticide while they keep evolving physiologically to resist more components. The more chemicals we use, the more pressure is placed on the bothersome bug and they become stronger and harder to kill. Every year the 10 -16 % of agricultural production worldwide is lost to pest consumption and damage. This is significantly higher compared to the 7% crop loss in the early 20th century before chemical pesticides were introduced as common practice. Since 1945, roughly 1000 species have developed resistance to one or more pesticide compounds. The Colorado Potato beetle, for instance, is resistant to 52 different compounds, making it one of the most difficult pests to control. Pests are also adapting to tolerate more pesticides and affecting a wider variety of crops. Famously disastrous, the corn borer has been found increasingly in potatoes over the past two years. Additionally, a species of highly resistant whitefly, which was only found in nurseries and greenhouses is now coming out and attacking adult avocado trees throughout florida.

Pests have impacted human lives in different part of the world and throughout human history. Desert locusts have been responsible for famine and death in the Middle East and Africa. A very small swarm can eat as much food as 35,000 people in a day. Sadly this pest is now resistant to organophosphates, the pesticides that until recently helped control the outbreaks. The potato blight, a fungus, was the cause of the Irish potato famine of 1850 where over 1 million people died and another million emigrated out of Ireland. The coffee leaf rust is the fungus that turned the UK into tea drinkers in the early 19th Century caused more than USD $ 1 billion in damages affecting over 2 million people in Latin America

Pests have also travelled from their local geographies to other parts of the world through human commerce channels. Just last month a scientist in the University of Arkansas collected 30 species of plant eating wasps that had never been found in the state before. 66% of the sawfly species collected were new to the area. The Tuta Absoluta, a pesticide resistant moth that targets and destroys tomato crops is currently spreading throughout Nigeria. This pest originally came from Latin America, through Spain and finally into Africa in 2009. Responsible for over US$ 6.9 billion in crops damage, the pest is causing tomato prices in the region to be twenty times higher and forcing the Nigerian government to declare a national emergency. Globalization is not the only reason for the fast expansion of pests. The constant warming of the average temperatures in temperate climates is allowing insects that couldn’t survive in the cold to resist and live in areas closer to the poles. The pine weevil, a small beetle and the most important pest on commercial conifers, is responsible for the death of more than 60 million acres of pine trees in the US and Canada over the last two decades. The beetle is now reaching latitudes where it had never been seen before.

Pest management has been an unavoidable task for farmers since the dawn of agriculture. Technology, innovation and plant discovery throughout history have helped in reducing the loss to a minimum. Nevertheless, with the creation of chemical pesticides pests have evolved their resistance to these mechanisms. At the same time clime change is creating better conditions for them to thrive. Integrated pest management practices along with natural pesticides, are greatly needed alternatives to outsmart and manage these resilient pests.