Canola grown in huge ropes is an ecological trap, claims a scientist

You can also listen to the interview in the audio version.

Rapeseed is one of the most cultivated crops in the Czech Republic, and in recent years it has caused a lot of controversy. Although it has been talked about a little less in the public space recently, it is still a plant that occupies approximately 15% of the arable land that Czech farmers care for.

In an interview for Seznam Zprávy, Jakub Hruška, team leader of the Global Change Research Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, talks about the effects of growing this plant on the environment and how they could be prevented.

What is your opinion about rapeseed in the Czech countryside? Do the advantages or disadvantages prevail?

Canola is demonized a little rightly and a little wrongly. It is difficult to have any objection to canola for food purposes. It’s an oily plant and we don’t have another here. In Asia they have palm oil and we have canola.

But in Central Europe, especially in the former Eastern Bloc, it is customary to grow rapeseed on large areas – and this means a significant problem for biodiversity. It becomes an ecological trap. It is a crop that is highly chemicalized and heavily treated with pesticides, which is a problem. Deaths of bee colonies, for example, are often associated with the spraying of rapeseed. And the bigger the field, the bigger the ecological trap. If it was grown on smaller areas and was better divided in the landscape – and above all, if the entire Czech landscape was better divided and not so terribly barren and monotonous, then of course the effect of rapeseed would not be as bad as it is today.

How to solve this problem?

I think that the first generation biofuels should be canceled in the first place, that’s the most important thing in my opinion. As a result, cultivated rapeseed for MEŘO (rapeseed oil methyl ester – editor’s note) would significantly decrease. The Ministry of Agriculture claims that only 40 percent of rapeseed goes to MEŘO, I think it is more, because it is also traded. I would say more than half travel there. The fact that you have the mandatory addition of methyl ester to diesel does not mean that you have to grow rapeseed on your territory, you can easily buy it. In the same way, the Scandinavian countries buy palm oil to make methyl ester from it, but they do not have to grow rapeseed on their territory. However, this is actually a pretty ugly way to go in relation to the environment.

I would simply cancel first generation biofuels, that would solve it relatively easily. And the structure of the landscape must be solved anyway, it’s not just a question of rapeseed, but of the entire agricultural landscape and its structure, which is terrible, bad, and we’ll pay for it. From massive erosion to groundwater full of pesticides and fertilizers to large numbers of insects dying out.

But it is rapeseed that acts as an anti-erosion plant, isn’t it?

Yes, rapeseed in particular has the advantage of being anti-erosion because it has deep roots and is planted quite densely together. When it’s growing, it’s cool, unlike corn, for example. It is always eroded because it has wide rows, nothing grows in the field under the corn, there is completely bare soil, the corn is eroded the whole time it is in the field. While canola does not, it is in the field for a long time, it is sown in September and harvested in July.

But now I found out that the state authority has classified it among erosion crops, because it is being prepared for sowing already at the end of summer, when heavy rains and precipitation are not excluded.

Is there any way to grow canola in a more ecological way?

Of course there is. Rapeseed can easily be grown in an organic farming regime. It is possible, but it would probably bring less returns. On the other hand, costs would also be reduced, spraying costs quite a bit of money. For this to be possible, farmers would have to mechanically remove the weeds, which they do not intend to do, preferring to spray the plants.

Ministry of Agriculture to grow canola

So it would have to impose some kind of regulation from above?

Yes, but currently there is no chance that anyone would issue such a regulation, it would have to be social pressure.

Are there other ways to grow more gently?

There is one more interesting alternative. A significant problem with canola is the so-called canola moth, which is a butterfly that bites off the flowers and reduces the yield terribly. And he orients himself in such a way that he reacts to the color yellow. Today, white rapeseed varieties have been bred that could help this problem disappear. But in the last few years I have only seen her in our field once. I don’t know why farmers don’t use it, that’s a question for some agronomist. Maybe it’s expensive, maybe it has other disadvantages. But, for example, growing this other canola would certainly reduce the amount of spraying used. But maybe it has other hooks.