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Eating puts our health at risk. The big challenge today is to find substitutes for pesticides while feeding the planet. Transition agriculture is a field in which Philippe Jacques has been working for more than thirty years. In particular, he has been developing an organic pesticide since 1988 which is still not on the market. “There are alternatives. But the processes of bio-pesticides are quite long. They must be biodegradable, as natural as possible and close to the substances that exist and protect plants. And then you have to train people, which takes time, without forgetting that you have to invest in new equipment. It is a slow phenomenon that must be accelerated by all possible means. But research is not funded enough and the certification process is also very slow.”
In the meantime, might all farmers switch to organic? “This would greatly reduce yields and increase prices. Are we ready for this? Better to hope to switch all farmers to clean techniques. But it will take another generation to get there.”
Flanders does a little better. Soilless vegetable crops have been started. The roots of the plants drink a juice of chemical fertilizers, which allows them to avoid soil diseases, and since the culture is completely closed, there are no more insects or diseases. Practically unprocessed peppers or eggplants are thus obtained. “We are totally the opposite of organic but we meet one of the goals of organic which is not to cultivate with pesticides.”