面对人类诸多困境，联合国提出了粮食安全、人类健康、社会经济发展、资源保护和生态恢复等可持续发展目标。植物病害防控对实现这些目标可发挥重要作用，但有些防控措施也无意识地带来了社会、生态和经济的负面结果，而这些后果并没有由相关责任人来承担，即产生了负外部性。同时，由于生产者及其他社会主体的利益诉求差异、防控经济阈值把握不到位以及未弄清防控效率、盈利性和生态功能性之间的复杂关系等原因，植物病害防控的策略选择和技术实施都受到了很大限制。在经济社会体系中，植物病害防控的可持续发展既受制于技术内在属性，也取决于社会经济因素（如利润、预期、沉默成本、机会成本、政策、偏好等）。可见，要引导和推动植物病害防控的可持续发展，既需弄清其经济、社会和生态效应，开展以生产能力、盈利性、生物进化等为主要内容的综合评价，揭示其短期效应（如成本、收益、便利性、有效性等）和长期效应（如病原生物进化、农业生产可恢复性、生物时空多样性等），也需明晰植物病害防控的正负外部性，为政府平衡植物病害防控的社会、生态和经济效益的决策提供理论和应用支撑。此外，考虑到未来植物病害防控策略和技术的可选择性以及效益溢出问题，除了优化技术、平衡技术和农产品供需市场外，政府、研究人员、生产者和消费者之间的信息对称性也应予更为充分的重视和研究。

Plant disease management plays an important role in achieving the sustainable development goals of the United Nations (UN) such as food security, human health, socio-economic improvement, resource conservation and ecological resilience.  However, technologies available are often limited due to different interests between producers and society and lacks of proper understanding of economic thresholds and the complex interactions among ecology, productivity and profitability.  A comprehensive synergy and conflict evaluation of economic, sociological and ecological effects with technologies, productions and evolutionary principles as main components should be used to guide sustainable disease management that aims to mitigate crop and economic losses in the short term while maintaining functional farm ecosystem in the long term.  Consequently, there should be an increased emphasis on technology development, public education and information exchange among governments, researchers, producers and consumers to broaden the options for disease management in the future.