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Hijacking IPM – intensive chemical use competes with sustainable options
There is increasing debate about the
principles of integrated pest management (IPM). The pesticide industry
promotes pesticides and the sale of genetically modified crop seeds as
compatible with IPM programmes, whilst environmentalists argue for a
sustainable approach.
In 1995 an Organisation of Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) workshop made a number of recommendations in support of lower
input and sustainable agriculture, assistance to farmers to support reduced
pesticide use, consideration of the externalities of pesticide use, and the
development of national risk reduction strategies (see PN30, p14).
Since then the OECD has made significant progress in its
pesticide risk reduction work, and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)
of the UN is demonstrating how participatory integrated pest management (IPM)
can lower inputs and increase yields. The two bodies came together in July in
Neuchatel (Switzerland) in a workshop on IPM and Pesticide Risk Reduction
which addressed the following issues:
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How can IPM contribute to pesticide
risk reduction in agriculture?
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What makes IPM projects successful?
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What are the main barriers to and
incentives for implementing IPM?
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Is it important to measure IPM
implementation, and if so, how should this be done?
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What can national governments,
international organisations, and other IPM stakeholders do to increase IPM
adoption?
Making IPM succeed
Experience has demonstrated that in order to succeed
IPM must be farmer driven. Research must respond to the demands of farmers for
solutions to their problems in the field, and not the academic interests of
researchers. Successful IPM projects are locally organised and adapted to local
needs and conditions.
A local focus can promote projects that are responsive to
local ecosystems. Similarly a diffuse biocontrol industry responsive to local
needs could thrive in a supportive climate of IPM, but cannot compete with the
agrochemical industry.
Farmers and their communities need good IPM services such as
education, advice from extentionists, information exchange, instruments to
measure progress and pilot projects to learn from. IPM could be encouraged by
retailers’ standards, consumers education and a premium paid to farmers.
Barriers and incentives
Current trends in national policies tend to reduce
funds for extension services, assume pesticide use in plant production, demand
high levels of standardization, support high cosmetic standards and inhibit new
technologies and the introduction of tools for IPM, or at least give them no
advantage. Instead governments could set targets for IPM adoption, promote
research and streamline the registration of IPM tools for pest management. This
however, should not be confused with the industry mantra that their pesticides
are IPM compatible. Most are not and cannot be by virtue of the fact that they
are broad spectrum chemicals.
Measuring progress
Measurement systems should not only focus on the
number of farmers taking up IPM or the area of land under IPM. They should also
take account of the impacts of IPM on the environment, farm economy and social
welfare. Too often cost benefit analyses of agricultural production systems come
out in favour of pesticide use, particularly in developed countries, as they
fail to measure external costs.
Some of the benefits of IPM such as increased farmer profits,
lower pesticide use and sustained yield are felt immediately and can be
demonstrated in well designed measurement systems. Other benefits of IPM are
manifested over a longer period of time. These might include improved
biodiversity, and reduced probability of pest outbreaks and pest resistance.
Social benefits might include more farmer involvement and more appropriate
research and development.
Moving forwards
The consensus of the Neuchatel workshop was that wider
adoption of IPM would help to achieve the aim of pesticide risk reduction as
well as many other economic, social and environmental benefits.
There were warnings from some of the participants of this
meeting however. The pesticide industry continues to promote chemical pesticides
as IPM compatible, and the sale of genetically modified crop seeds as an element
of IPM production systems is growing. The pesticide industry assumes that
pesticides will continue to play an essential role in pest management.
Workshop participants questioned the expanding role of
corporate food retailers in the implementation of IPM. While organisations such
as Migros and Co-op in Switzerland and Sainsbury and CWS in the UK are playing
important roles in meeting consumer demands and educating consumers, they may be
disempowering farmers by dictating production methods. Implementing IPM
according to a remotely dictated recipe is ultimately unsustainable and may
limit many of the social benefits of IPM associated with farmer inclusion in
processes such as research and development, discussion forums and policy
implementation.
What is not stated clearly enough in the conclusions of the
Neuchatel workshop is that two fundamental principles of IPM must be that there
is no assumption that pesticides will be used, and that pesticide use should be
reduced. (MD)
A great deal of effort and money has been
invested in developing cotton IPM systems. But successful IPM occurs when
researchers and farmers work together. Farmer Field Schools (FFS) have proved to
be an effective way to link research more closely with farmers.
In Zimbabwe small-scale communal farmers produce more
than 70% of cotton grown in the country, but most farmers lack the basic
agronomic and pest management knowledge for efficient use of inputs,
particularly regarding pesticides.
Integrated Production and Pest Management (IPPM) takes IPM as
an integral part of the cropping system. With the support of the FAO Global IPM
Facility, a project is training IPPM facilitators to provide technical and
organisational skills to communities.
The IPPM farmer plots averaged 0.2 sprays over the season,
compared with the 2.8 sprays on research recommended plots, and 5.8 on
farmers’ current practice plots.
An FFS initiative in the Trichy area, Tamil Nadu, India, in
1997 helped farmers reduce their high input costs and increased the stability of
cropping systems through use of intercrops. Farmers were able to eliminate
chemical use in the IPM plots, compared with 8-10 applications in the regular
farmers’ practice (FP) plots, by using early sown cowpea as a border trap crop
for pests, and castor to build up populations of beneficial insects, farmers
understood how the trap crop became a natural enemy breeding ground. One of the
major benefits of reducing the number of pesticide applications, apart from
financial, was that women were saved hours of time previously spent hauling
water from 3km away for 10 applications by knapsack spraying.
In 1997 an FFS pilot project with ten groups of 25 farmers in
the Vehari District of the Punjab in Pakistan conducted field experiments
on the effects of pesticides on natural enemies of pests. Farmers managing IPM
plots were able to reduce the average number of applications of insecticides to
1.4 per season compared to 5.2 per season in the (FP) plots. Two FFS groups
succeeded in reaching the end of the season without a single application of
synthetic pesticides.
Information provided by CABI Bioscience
(Ascot), UK Centre.
[This article first
appeared in Pesticides News No.42, December 1998, page 9]
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