Conventional pesticides are chemicals used for decades at large scale in agriculture to protect crops from pests, ensure sufficient yields to meet the food needs of a continuously growing population, in a world facing also extreme climatic events and biodiversity loss. Insect pests are responsible for high crop losses but also contribute to the spread of important viral diseases. However, some pesticides have been shown harmful for humans and animals, causing acute and chronic diseases, and some have been considered potential pollutants as they can persist in the air, soil and water. Regulators have decided to ban some toxic pesticides to ensure water and food safety, hence protecting consumers’ health.
Sustainable agriculture implies reducing the use of pesticides, supporting farmers by proposing new alternatives to chemical pesticides, always protecting human and environmental health in an approach of integrated pest management (IPM). Several alternatives to pesticides with different efficiencies and costs have been developed and some of them have been already used in greenhouses or in the field, such as rotation of cultures, mechanical means of control (e.g. ploughing, weeding robots), biopesticides (e.g. natural plant-derived extracts), resistant or tolerant crops to pests or climate change.
Two molecular DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)-, and RNA (ribonucleic acid)-based technologies, emerged in the 2000-2010s as an alternative to conventional pesticides offering new perspectives in crop protection: (1) RNA interference (RNAi), also named gene silencing, and (2) clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated gene (Cas) (CRISPR-Cas) technologies.
This report summarizes the main information about these technologies, their mode of action (MoA), possible applications, current state of the art of their use, and their potential risks to human and environmental health.
LAMY Marie-Cecile;
PORCEL RODRIGUEZ Elena;
TEIXEIRA Miguel;
GOMEZ CORTES Livia;
SANSEVERINO Isabella;
LETTIERI Teresa;
2025-10-14
Publications Office of the European Union
JRC144048
978-92-68-32537-7 (online),
1831-9424 (online),
EUR 40484,
OP KJ-01-25-512-EN-N (online),
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC144048,
10.2760/3271737 (online),
