SCENARIO STUDIES FOR FUTURE AGRICULTURE AND CROP PROTECTION

The history of crop protection has shown two shifts of focus. In the s econd half of this century, attention shifted from the pathogen to the pathosystem, and at present we are witnessing a further shift to a fo cus on the whole production system. So, crop protection is now seen as just one activity among many in agricultural production systems and i mprovement of crop protection is no longer seen as separate from goals such as maximizing yield and minimizing inputs, as for example nitrat e use per unit of product and use of pesticides per unit of land. To e xplore options for future crop protection in conjunction with other pr oduction goals, scenario studies can be useful tools. Scenario studies may be used for the evaluation of technologies or may comprise feasib ility analyses of land use at various aggregation levels. The methodol ogy of scenario studies is explained in this paper and some examples a re described. It is demonstrated how useful organised thinking about t he future can be.