Integrated pest management in Southern Africa

Advances in Agriculture

The production of sustainable crops and environmental management in farming face several significant potential obstacles, including climate change, resource depletion and environmental degradation. Weeds and insect pests that considerably reduce yields have put crop production systems in danger. The greatest worry for farmers is the decline in productivity due to illnesses and pests. Insects, weed pests, and plant pathogens destroy more than 40% of all potential food production every year. The widespread use of integrated pest management (IPM) is a result of worries about the long-term viability of conventional agriculture. IPM ensures sufficient, secure, equitable, and steady flows of both food and ecosystem services, as well as increased agricultural profitability due to lower pest management expenditures. A number of studies conducted on IPM have been combined. Important information from all these studies was analyzed and summarized in this literature review. In this article, we ...

1996

Frontiers in agronomy, 2024

Editorial on the Research Topic Integrated Pest Management of tropical crops Over half a century ago, the concept of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) was developed by entomologists at the University of California at Berkeley. The idea centered around the economic, social, and environmental ramifications of the indiscriminate use of chemical pesticidesincluding pest resistance, resurgence of pests, and adverse impacts on non-target species, humans, wildlife, and the environment (Stern et al., 1959). FAO (1994) has defined the concept as "the careful integration of several available pest control techniques that discourage pest population development and keep pesticide and other interventions to levels that are economically justified and safe for human health and the environment." IPM is a dynamic program specific to crop, location, season, and economic conditions, including political, that combines all available tactics to help grow healthy plants (Muniappan et al., 2016). It combines cultural control, mechanical control, host plant resistance, biological control, and chemical control with safe insecticides, while involving the disciplines of entomology, plant pathology, nematology, weed science, economics, sociology, computer sciences, statistics, and others. IPM is targeted for a crop or a weed (especially for alien invasive ones) and not for addressing a single insect pest, disease, or nematode. Even though IPM began to reduce reliance on chemical pesticides by involving biological control and host plant resistance, it is an agroecological approach to pest and disease management (Pretty et al., 2010). In some cases, a single component of IPM, classical biological control, has suppressed pests such as papaya mealybug, Paracoccus marginatus Williams and Granara de Willink (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae) (Myrick et al., 2014), cassava mealybug, Phenococcus manihoti Matile-Ferrero (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae) (Neuenschwander, 2003), and cassava green mite, Mononychellus tanajoa Bondar (Acari: Tetranychidae) (Yaninek and Hanna, 2003), but such a solution needs to be integrated with the IPM packages of the crops these pests are associated with. While IPM does not represent the management of a single group of arthropods or diseases, IPM research has been dominated by an insect bias, followed by diseases, then weeds (Pretty et al., 2010, Muniappan et al., 2016). Since IPM tactics vary from location to location and season to season, they cannot be proposed as a blanket recommendation (Dilts and Hale, 1996) and they need to be modified and adjusted accordingly. The popular extension program of the 1960s, "Training

Indian Journal of Entomology

Insect pests, diseases, nematodes and weeds constitute major biotic stresses in crop production systems inflicting 15 to 25% or more yield losses. Adverse effects of pesticides can be countered through adoption of integrated pest management (IPM), which emphasizes harmonious use of safer and environment friendly methods of pest suppression. IPM works on the premise that all pest population levels are not injurious to crops. It is a knowledge intensive decision based activity and requires tools and techniques for its execution. IPM algorithm involves crop loss assessment, pest risk analysis, development of pest surveillance and forewarning methodology and decision support tools for harmonious integration of management tactics within the framework of Integrated Crop Management system. IPM modules for various field crops are based upon integration of resistant cultivars, cultural, mechanical and physical methods, natural enemies, biopesticides and pesticides to suppress pest population...

Using organic materials farming to sport farmets to have improved and locally available materials to control pests.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a leading complement and alternative to synthetic pesticides and a form of sustainable intensification with particular importance for tropical smallholders. Global pesticide use has grown over the past 20 years to 3.5 billion kg/year, amounting to a global market worth $45 billion. The external costs of pesticides are $4–$19 (€3–15) per kg of active ingredient applied, suggesting that IPM approaches that result in lower pesticide use will benefit, not only farmers, but also wider environments and human health. Evidence for IPM’s impacts on pesticide use and yields remains patchy. We contribute an evaluation using data from 85 IPM projects from 24 countries of Asia and Africa implemented over the past twenty years. Analysing outcomes on productivity and reliance on pesticides, we find a mean yield increase across projects and crops of 40.9% (SD 72.3), combined with a decline in pesticide use to 30.7% (SD 34.9) compared with baseline. A total of 35 of 115 (30%) crop combinations resulted in a transition to zero pesticide use. We assess successes in four types of IPM projects, and find that at least 50% of pesticide use is not needed in most agroecosystems. Nonetheless, policy support for IPM is relatively rare, counter-interventions from pesticide industry common, and the IPM challenge never done as pests, diseases and weeds evolve and move.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) systems in developed countries are largely based on substantial bodies of available information from a number of sources, including published material, extension agents, contract crop consultants and, more recently, the internet. Delivery systems for this information have traditionally been through extension agents in the USA but the internet is playing a larger role. IPM in developing countries, such as those in Southeast Asia, has been addressed most effectively through massive training of farmers through farmer field schools and farmer participatory research in the region. S.E. Asia is characterized by large numbers of farmers cultivating small plots. Production systems involve substantial amounts of labor inputs, which often put farm laborers at risk from exposure to harmful chemicals. Mechanical devices that replace labor in developed countries are not common in the S.E. Asia region. Technological advances have made an impact mainly through improved plant varieties and cultural practices to enhance yields. IPM training has taken hold throughout the region as a means to establish the farmer as the primary decision-maker and to equip him or her with an understanding of the critical relationship between agricultural output and field ecology. Training programs in all S.E. Asian countries are aggressively spreading the message to “grow a healthy crop” as the first step in establishing sound IPM programs. Results from some IPM programs are presented and discussed but the list is not all inclusive and is always evolving and changing with the farmers’ crop mix and increased knowledge of the agricultural ecosystem.