Integrated pest management: approaches and implementation

Abstract

Decreasing availability of arable land per unit area due to increasing human population coupled with declining trend observed in the productivity of various crops due to fragmentation of land and decrease in cultivable area exert enormous pressure to meet the required demand of food grains and fibre. It is more evident in the developing world as compared to the developed world. In the present scenario, prevention of losses due to pests is one of the options to meet the challenge of world food security. However, current plant protection practices causes greater danger to environment as well to human health. Implementation of integrated pest management (IPM) technology may be able to address environmental and human health issues, but has not been adopted on large scale. IPM technology has shown promises in reducing pesticide use while improving productivity and profitability, but measuring the success of IPM programmes has become a crucial issue. The decision to adopt a particular IPM activity depends upon the grower’s ability and decision to absorb the risk involved in the assessment of prediction of light or severe pest attack. The IPM technology brings not only direct benefits like savings in critical inputs and gains in income in different crops in plant protection measures but also has indirect benefits like improved environment and empowerment of farmers. There is need to make innovative changes in plant protection measures and improve the education of farmers who can fully understand both direct and indirect benefits and risk involved in it. There have been some outstanding development in practical implementation of IPM in the developed world, there remains a critical need for much more appropriate IPM research and its implementation in the developing world. Policy issues such as quarantine and bio-safety and technical gaps such as sound crop husbandry, genetic resistance, biological control, pesticides and availability of critical IPM inputs, research prioritization and popularization may be focused.