Herbicide technologies for the future : a look at resistance

Abstract

In her controversial book, Silent Spring, Rachel Carson questioned human attempts to control the natural world by means of synthetic pesticides. The 1960s saw the advent of the so-called green revolution, which was characterised by the doubling of yields of major grain crops, thanks mainly to frenzied development of improved and novel technologies that spawned more efficient cultivars, fertilisers and pesticides.

The concomitant improvement in food security, farmer profits and livelihoods, as well as the upliftment of rural communities that those technological advancements brought, represented to Carson “a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster”.