Trophobiosis Theory: A Pest Starves on a Healthy Plant

Summary

Pests shun healthy plants. Pesticides weaken plants. Weakened plants open the door to pests and disease. Hence pesticides precipitate pest attack and disease susceptibility, and thus they induce a cycle of further pesticide use.
This is the essence of Trophobiosis Theory, a thesis presented by Francis Chaboussou, an agronomist of the France’s National Institute of Agricultural Research (INRA), in “Healthy Crops: A New Agricultural Revolution”. After two decades, this important book is finally available in English.
Plant pathologist Chaboussou (b.1908 - d.1985) saw with a clear eye that just as there are iatrogenic, doctor-caused, medical problems, likewise there are agrogenic, farmer-caused, agricultural problems. Chaboussou offers a lifetime’s insight into his vision for an agriculture without pesticides, and in so doing he offers a scientific underpinning for organic and bio-dynamic agriculture.