<i>New Plant Protection</i>: New challenge and new opportunity for plant protection

The most vital connections among organisms in an ecosystem are nutritional competition and mutual benefit, and these form the basis of food chains and webs. Plants maintain interactive relationships with both beneficial and harmful organisms in their environment, generating relatively stable natural ecosystems over millions of years of evolution. However, as the global population has continued to increase, natural ecosystems have not been able to meet the increasing demands for food. Around 10,000 years ago, humans began domesticating plants, which led to their rapid agricultural adaptation through extensive farming activities and the development of farming communities. This led to a breakdown in the equilibrium established in the ecosystem, leading to agricultural ecosystems being manipulated by human activity. Since then humans have been exploring improvements in the production efficiency of farming ecosystems by exploring methods to enhance crop yields and control losses to meet the food needs of the rapidly increasing population (from 5 million people 7000 years ago to 100 million people 2500 years ago, reaching nearly 8 billion in 2022). Among these agricultural improvements, plant protection technologies have emerged and progressively developed into a comprehensive scientific plant protection system that integrated with the development of natural sciences, including biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, and other sciences to effectively prevent and control plant pests. Damages to crops caused by pests and diseases lead to major yield losses, human starvation, and even social unrest. For instance, the Great Irish Famine in the mid-19th century, caused by potato late blight, resulted in the death of about 1 million people and the emigration of 1.5 million people to America. According to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, up to 40% of the world's crops suffer from plant pests and diseases. Furthermore, about 25% of the harvested grains are contaminated by mycotoxins, diminishing their storage and subsequent consumption. This leads to agricultural trade losses exceeding US $220 billion annually. To reduce the impact of plant pests and diseases on agricultural production, humans have been attempting to improve agricultural production efficiency by developing plant protection technologies. Following the developments over the past 100 years, a series of technical systems of plant protection have been established, which include monitoring and warning, early diagnosis, agricultural, biological, physical, and chemical control, ecological regulation, use of resistant varieties, and others. Frequently, pesticides are used to control plant pests and diseases and thus increase crop production, along with improved crop varieties and fertilizers. At least 30%–40% of food losses can be recovered through the scientific use of pesticides. In the absence of pesticide applications in the United States, it is projected that the output of plant products from the United States would decrease by 30%, and the prices of the corresponding agricultural products would increase by 50%–75%. In China, the implementation of plant protection technology can prevent losses of over 140 billion kilograms of grain every year, representing 20% of the total grain output. Therefore, plant protection plays an irreplaceable role in improving the production efficiency of agricultural ecosystems, alleviating food insecurity and meeting the explosively growing demand for food to feed the future population. However, there are increasing challenges to enhance the efficiency of agroecosystems through plant protection, which includes: (1) Challenges of global food security: The global population growth by an additional 2 billion over the next 60 years exceeds the earth's current production capacity and poses significant challenges to global food security. Humanity still needs to utilize plant protection technologies to reduce food losses. (2) Challenges of human development demands the following: The requirements for food have developed from providing basic sustenance to focusing on nutrition and health. This shift puts the onus on high-quality food production using plant protection technologies, including health criteria, environmental friendliness, sustainable development, etc. (3) Challenges of plant protection itself: The continual emergence of new varieties, the ongoing adjustment of crop planting structures, the persistent application of agricultural inputs to boost yields, and the ever-changing global climate (e.g., climate warming and increasing droughts and floods.). These factors significantly disrupt the balance of agricultural ecosystems, leading to an increasing number of pest population explosions and accelerated mutations. Therefore, as the plant protection discipline enters the coming era, there is an urgent need to reshape and build a new plant protection discipline system characterized by a new atmosphere, new empowerment, and a new paradigm. The concept of new plant protection is proposed. Firstly, it is driven by advanced innovation and integration of science and technology, combined with cutting-edge disciplines, including artificial intelligence, intelligent manufacturing, life and health sciences, and quantum information, to propose new theories, develop innovative plant protection technologies, create novel products, and ultimately provide sustainable pest management solutions. Secondly, it is guided by the principle of scientifically improving agricultural production efficiency, focusing on solving significant scientific and technological challenges, including durable crop resistance, outbreaks of plant pests and disease, pesticide residues, and intelligent forecasting. Recognizing that technology is a double-edged sword, it will need to take into account the balance of “taking” and “giving” and avoid over-exploitation of ecosystems driven by technology. Thirdly, it is based on plant health and environmental friendliness by integrating the concept of One Health that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals, and ecosystems. Thus, it aims to control plant pests and diseases scientifically and effectively and to improve the production efficiency of agricultural ecosystems while promoting the harmonious development of humanity and nature. The journal New Plant Protection (NPP) has been born to cater to the emerging scenarios described above, and is cofounded by the China Society of Plant Protection and the Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, collaborating with the international publisher Wiley. The mission of this journal is to lead the transformation and development of traditional plant protection toward the new plant protection concept, focusing on all fields of plant protection, including plant diseases, insect pests, weeds, mice, pesticides, biological control, and invasive species. Through research papers, reviews, commentaries, etc., NPP will publish comprehensive new theories, new ideas, and new technologies, disseminate the latest research findings from multidisciplinary studies in both basic and applied plant protection research, and also promote sustainable pest management solutions based on plant health and harmony between humans and the environment. Topics covered by NPP include, but are not limited to, basic and applied research results (such as identification biological characteristics of pests and pathogens, resistance mechanisms, crop and pest interactions, epidemiology, chemical and green sustainable control, and pest risk assessment), cutting-edge technologies at the intersection of traditional plant protection and emerging disciplines (creation of green pesticides, intelligent monitoring systems, and intelligent plant protection), new products in line with the concept of green development (RNA interference products, pheromone attractants, microbial pesticides, genetic modification organisms, and gene editing resources), and technology systems for all-process prevention and control of pests including regional integration and eco-friendly technology transformation. We sincerely invite all scientists and professionals in plant protection and related fields worldwide to submit manuscripts to NPP and share scientific research, which will advance the development of the new plant protection disciplines. We are committed to shortening the peer review process while maintaining quality and fairness. We firmly believe that NPP will promote a transition to the concepts outlined above that encapsulate new plant protection, contribute new solutions to ensure global food security, and support human social development by serving the international plant protection community. Jianping Chen: Conceptualization; writing—review & editing; writing—original draft. Kongming Wu: Conceptualization; writing—review & editing.