TITLE:
Weed Management: Its Significance for Holistic Pest Management
AUTHORS:
Mayumi Vega-Polanco, Raisa Yarina Escalona-Domenech
KEYWORDS:
Agroecology, Holistic Pest Management, Human Resilience, Weeds, Weed Management
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection,
Vol.14 No.10,
October
29,
2026
ABSTRACT: Holistic Pest Management (HPM) is a recent approach that starts with the producer’s own social, economic, and environmental context and builds decisions around it. Its goal is sustainability at the regional scale, pursued by diversifying agroecosystems through a mix of ecological and productive practices. Fewer pest outbreaks are one result; better well-being for the people who farm is another. HPM draws on agroecology, which leans on a farm’s internal resources instead of external inputs and lets the synergies among the system’s components do part of the pest control. People, crops, soil, and livestock are analyzed together, and vegetation management is the main way to bring natural pest control back. The logic is simple: a more diverse system offers habitat and food to beneficial organisms. These regulate pest populations through biological control and make production systems more stable and more resilient to disturbance. Weeds matter here. Usually treated as a nuisance, they also protect soil and its fertility, add to biodiversity, and shelter the natural enemies of pests. What must be managed, then, is not the weeds themselves but their abundance, their diversity, and how they interact with the rest of the agroecosystem. Done well, this lets farmers withstand the agricultural pressures they face today.