A new 10-year study from France is challenging one of the biggest assumptions in modern agriculture.

Can farms produce food without pesticides?

According to researchers, the answer can be yes, under the right conditions.

The study, coordinated by France’s National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), followed nine different pesticide-free cropping systems across nine locations in France.

The goal was ambitious: grow crops without using any pesticides, including chemical treatments and seed treatments.

Instead, researchers relied on longer and more diverse crop rotations, plant diversity, healthy soils, prevention techniques and other agroecological methods to reduce weeds, pests and diseases. Synthetic mineral fertilizers were still allowed.

The results showed that going pesticide-free does not automatically mean giving up competitive yields.

Yields were often lower than conventional systems using chemical pesticides, but in some situations they reached similar levels or even exceeded them. Crop damage from pests and diseases also did not significantly increase over the 10-year period.

The economic results were also encouraging.

Across the four conventional arable systems where economic performance could be calculated, estimated income was between one and two times the French minimum wage in 20% of cases, between two and three times in 45%, and more than three times in 35% of the years studied.

But the researchers are not saying every farm can immediately eliminate pesticides.

Weed control remained difficult in some situations, and certain systems required ploughing to manage persistent weeds. The researchers also say that successful pesticide-free agriculture requires diversified crop rotations, suitable markets and ways to give added economic value to the products.

What the study does show is that agriculture does not necessarily have to choose between conventional farming and organic farming.

There may be another path: carefully designed farming systems that produce competitive harvests while eliminating pesticides.

The challenge now is figuring out where, how and at what scale those systems can work in the real world.