Citation: Kalogiannidis, S.; Kalfas, D.; Chatzitheodoridis, F.; Papaevangelou, O. Role of Crop-Protection Technologies in Sustainable Agricultural Productivity and Management. Land 2022, 11, 1680. https://doi.org/10.3390/land11101680 Academic Editor: Purushothaman Chirakkuzhyil Abhilash Received: 21 August 2022 Accepted: 26 September 2022 Published: 28 September 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). land Article Role of Crop-Protection Technologies in Sustainable Agricultural Productivity and Management Stavros Kalogiannidis 1 , Dimitrios Kalfas 2, * , Fotios Chatzitheodoridis 3 and Olympia Papaevangelou 4 1 Department of Business Administration, University of Western Macedonia, 51100 Grevena, Greece 2 Department of Agriculture, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Western Macedonia, 53100 Florina, Greece 3 Department of Regional and Cross-Border Development, University of Western Macedonia, 50100 Kozani, Greece 4 Secondary & Postsecondary Educator, Ministry of Education, 50100 Kozani, Greece * Correspondence: kalfdimi@otenet.gr Abstract: After the Second World War, technological advancements helped to develop agriculture and meet urgent food needs. The green revolution was based on the cultivation of new high-yielding varieties, the adoption of plant protection measures, and synthetic fertilizer use. Today, agriculture is called upon to recover its productivity in environmentally friendly terms and to face challenges such as climate change and international political–military events that threaten global sufficiency in agricultural products. The objective of the study is to evaluate the function that crop-protection technologies play in ensuring the continuity of agricultural output. The research was conducted by the use of a questionnaire in a sample of 250 farmers in Northern Greece. Specifically, through descriptive and regression analysis, the roles of biological crop protection, chemical crop-protection techniques, and mechanical crop-protection techniques were explored, and it was found that they either have a positive effect or a significant relationship with sustainable agricultural productivity. In order to meet the current environmental, economic, and political challenges, the agriculture sector at the global and local level should improve and further adopt existing technologies, consolidate the use of integrated pest-management strategies, and fully introduce innovations, combined with digital transformation, into agricultural management and production. Keywords: crop protection; biological control; chemical control; mechanical control; plant pests; plant diseases 1. Introduction A variety of tools, goods, and tactics are used in crop protection to safeguard crops from weeds, pests, viruses, plant diseases, and other undesirable elements [1]. They may have disastrous effects, greatly decreasing or even eliminating subsequent harvests. Pes- ticides, also known as crop-protection products (CPPs), are either naturally occurring or synthetic compounds manufactured by humans, that aid farmers by reducing crop losses to pests and diseases and increasing yield per hectare [2]. Humans have battled to increase food production and minimize insect damage for thousands of years. Throughout the years, there have been several early efforts to increase agricultural production and quality, with varying degrees of success. Fewer people are cultivating bigger acreages and producing higher yields, as agriculture has developed. In the United States and Canada, 98 percent of the population depends on the remaining 2 percent of the population to produce the food because of this change in production outputs. Although this idea is not always accurate, today’s food producers make up a far smaller percentage of the population than they did even 100 years ago. This strategy has been successful in large part because of previously unheard-of advancements in agricul- tural techniques, such as artificial chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Unfortunately, our Land 2022, 11, 1680. https://doi.org/10.3390/land11101680 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/land