Integrated Pest Management: Ideals and Realities in Developing Countries 9781685858193

Table of contents :
Contents
List of Tables and Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 The Rise and Rise of IPM
2 IPM, Pesticides, and Knowledge
3 The Genesis of the IPM Ideal
4 Making IPM Work
5 IPM: Forever New
6 Resource-Poor Farmers and IPM
7 Realistic Crop Protection: A New Road?
References
Index
About the Book

Citation preview

Integrated Pest Management

Integrated Pest Management •

Ideals and Realities in Developing Countries

Stephen Morse • William Buhler

LYN N E RIENNER PUBLISHERS

B O U L D E R L O N D O N

Published in the United States of America in 1997 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU © 1997 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Morse, Stephen, 1957Integrated pest management : ideals and realities in developing countries / by Stephen Morse and William Buhler. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-55587-685-4 (he : alk. paper) 1. Agricultural pests—Integrated control—Developing countries. I. Buhler, William, 1964II. Title. SB950.3.D44M67 1997 338.1'62—dc21 97-16388 CIP British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in the United States of America @

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984. 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Vll IX

List of Tables and Figures Acknowledgments Introduction

1

1

The Rise and Rise of IPM Agriculture, Power, and Research, 7 Problems in Crop Protection, 8 The Dominance of IPM, 15 Variations on a Theme: Different Views of IPM, 19 Management Versus Control, 25 Diversity: Strength or Weakness? 31

7

2

IPM, Pesticides, and Knowledge Pesticides and Sustainability in IPM, 33 Sampling as Part of IPM, 45 Knowledge and IPM, 48 Extension and IPM, 53

33

3

The Genesis of the IPM Ideal The Birth of IPM, 61 The Industrialization of Agriculture, 62 Research and Development of Crop Protection in the United States, 68 The Development of Entomological Research and Extension, 72 The Victory of an Ideal, 76 Conclusion, 77

61

v

vi

Contents

4

M a k i n g I P M Work The Classic Examples of IPM, 80 Other Examples of IPM in Developing Countries, 91 The Conditions Required for Successful IPM, 93

5

IPM: Forever N e w Explaining the Poor Adoption of IPM: Pesticides Rule, 109 Explaining the Poor Adoption of IPM: Other Factors, 112 Biotechnology to the Rescue? 118 Computers to the Rescue? 121 More IPM, 125

103

6

Resource-Poor Farmers and I P M Resource-Poor Farmers: A Multitude of Concerns, 127 What Do Farmers Want for Crop Protection? 129 The Social and Economic Dimensions of IPM, 131 IPM and Farmer First, 135

127

7

Realistic Crop Protection: A N e w R o a d ? Whose Agenda? 141 The Need for Another Paradigm Shift, 145 Some Conclusions, 149

141

References Index About the Book

79

153 167 171

Tables and Figures

Tables 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5

Summary of Crop Protection Methods The Four Main Groups of Organic Insecticides A Matrix of Crop Protection Approaches Comparison of the Relationship Between the Terms "Control" and "Management" Ecological Synopsis of Procedures Followed to Reduce the Injuriousness of Noxious Insects

9 10 14 21 24

1.6

Summary of Differences Between Control and Management

26

2.1

Types of Thresholds Employed in Crop Protection

40

3.1

The Development of IPM in the United States

71

4.1

Profile of Favorable Conditions That Encourage IPM Adoption by Farmers Extent of IPM Use, Crop Price, and Application of Insecticide for Twelve Major Crops in the United States (1986) Percentage of Publication Abstracts Since 1973 Referring to "Pest Management" for Different Crops Relative Importance of Pest Management Technologies

95 120

Technocentric and Sociocentric Approaches to Crop Protection

148

4.2

4.3 5.1 7.1

93

94

Figures 1.1

The Three Dimensions of Crop Protection

vii

13

V¡ ¡ ¡

Tables and Figures

1.2

Number of Publication Abstracts Referring to Pest Management The Differences Between Pest Control and Management in Terms of Knowledge and Action Some Consequences of Reduced Pesticide Use and Integration with Other Crop Protection Technologies Four Examples of Scales That Map Out the Areas of Crop Protection Covered by Control and Management

1.3 1.4 1.5

2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7

4.1

The Economic Injury Concept Economic Thresholds in IPM A Comparison of Economic, Biological, and Action Thresholds and Injury Levels The Inductive and Deductive Approaches to Science The Proposed Two Pressures in the Selection of IPM as the Dominant Paradigm in Crop Protection The Training and Visit System (T&V) of Agricultural Extension Comparison of Transfer of Technology (TOT) and Farming Systems Research (FSR) Approaches to Agricultural Extension

18 27 30 32 38 39 41 49 50 54

55

Variation in Sugar Beet and Wheat Crop Value and in Pesticide Cost for Three Commonly Used Pesticides for Aphids The Robustness of Research That Determined Specific UK Thresholds for Insect Pests

100

5.1

Vertical and Horizontal Research Efforts in Crop Protection

116

7.1

The Technocentric (Technology First) and Sociocentric (Farmer-Society First) Approaches to IPM

146

4.2

98

Acknowledgments

A number of people have reviewed the outline of this book, and we would particularly like to thank David Dent, Elon Gilbert, and Paulo Palladino for their comments and suggestions. We wish to point out that the arguments and observations made in the book are our own and do not necessarily reflect the views of our reviewers or, indeed, the official view of the School of Development Studies or the University of East Anglia. Stephen William

ix

Morse Buhler

Introduction

Crop protection has always been an important, if not vital, element of agriculture. Farmers have had to deal with insects, diseases, and weeds ever since they first began to grow crops and raise animals. Indeed, such concerns have not been limited to the production of food. The presence of other organisms where we do not want them extends to health care (e.g., mosquito control), amenities (e.g., weeds on sports fields, water weeds on lakes), and even aesthetics (e.g., care of lawns, roads, and paths). The omnipresence of unwanted organisms has naturally led to the development and encouragement of measures that can limit their damage. Some of these measures are so subtle as to be almost invisible to the lay observer, but others, notably the use of artificial chemicals (pesticides), are all too apparent. The environmental damage inflicted by the early pesticides such as DDT is now deeply embedded within the culture of many peoples who readily embraced this new and almost miraculous technology for dealing with pests. However, times have moved on since the late 1940s and 1950s, when pesticides were thought of as the final word in crop protection. To the lay observer little may have changed, anyone traveling through the roads of Europe and North America during the crop-growing season will probably observe pesticides being applied, but behind the scenes there have been many changes. Since the 1960s, Integrated Pest Management (IPM) has been the dominant paradigm in crop protection. IPM embodies an ecological approach to the pest problem, with a major advantage resting on one of its central tenets: that of reducing or even eliminating the use of pesticides. In part it calls for the management of pests based on flexible targets and continuous monitoring of pest populations to allow control measures, such as pesticides, to be implemented only when the populations have reached the targets. Given this, the appeal of the IPM philosophy is easy to understand—less pesticide use can only be good! IPM is also an applied ecologist's dream. Real IPM needs to be based on a thorough and extensive 1

2

Introduction

knowledge of the agro-ecosystem, and hence provides an almost unlimited demand for technical and socioeconomic research. Indeed, the dominance of IPM has come about in part because it represents both an environmental and technical ideal, and ideals never fade. They can only become more (or less) achievable with the passage of time. However, all is not rosy in the IPM garden. It has become clear that IPM is an ideal that is not so easy to reach in many, perhaps most, agroecosystems. Despite its extensive promotion, a number of authors have noted that IPM is not practiced by many farmers in both developed and developing countries. In response, IPM supporters have simply reemphasized the need for IPM and called for its wider usage. The basic elements of IPM still remain, but the methodology required to obtain IPM is altered, and calls are continuously being made for, among others things, more research and better farmer training and extension. A further interesting trend as a response to lack of implementation has been to redefine IPM in order to get the best of both worlds. The name (and hence the ideology of what it stands for) is kept, but its substance is altered in order to make it more achievable. Some may present this as a healthy evolution of IPM, but we argue that keeping the IPM label for approaches that are far removed from the original intention of IPM may be nice rhetoric but is nevertheless deceptive. The central theme of this book is the importance of the paradigm approach to science. Unquestioning belief in paradigms, no matter how attractive they may be, can be dangerous, and it is to be hoped that whether the reader concurs with the conclusions raised about IPM in this book or not, it will at least catalyze a critical appraisal of what is now the dominant paradigm in crop protection. To date the approach has been to adapt IPM to farmers' circumstances rather than ask whether IPM is really what farmers want to or are able to achieve. Although a more "farmer centered" language has entered the IPM rhetoric, the starting point is always IPM rather than crop protection or, indeed, the farmer. This book will attempt to completely reappraise the IPM paradigm from the practical perspective of many resource-poor farmers in developing countries. We believe that the problem with IPM lies in the complex nature of its implementation. Rather than accept IPM as the answer and tinker with its edges in order to get it to fit, we question the universal push for IPM and call for the starting point to be truly the farmer and not the paradigm. The book is divided into seven chapters. The first two chapters review the IPM concept and its central tenets. Chapter 1 summarizes the diversity of views as to what IPM is and discusses the distinctions typically drawn between pest "control" and "management." The second chapter looks at four central elements that are important when considering the applicability of IPM: the role of pesticides in IPM, pest population sampling, the need for knowledge in IPM, and the role of extension.

Introduction

3

The history of IPM is reviewed in Chapter 3, with special reference to its politicization in the United States. We point out that the origins of IPM lie firmly within the move toward the industrialization of agriculture in the United States and the linkage between yield and efficiency. This is followed in Chapter 4 by a discussion of some typical IPM success stories along with the problems typically encountered during implementation. We argue that IPM will work under certain conditions!, and a profile of such conditions is suggested. Because the ideal conditions for IPM are very different from many of the circumstances under which implementation has been attempted, the reasons for IPM becoming so dominant are examined. Chapters 3 and 4 illustrate the glaringly different contextual differences between the practicality of IPM in heavily capitalized industrial agroecosystems and that of resource-poor farming systems in developing countries. This broader approach to analyzing the development and feasibility of IPM as a panacea for pest control helps us find not only its faults, but also ways to tackle the complex issues at stake in pest control programs. Finally Chapters 5 to 7 pull together the lessons drawn from the earlier chapters and attempt to suggest an alternative strategy for crop protection under resource-poor conditions other than the virtual enforcement of IPM. Chapter 5 analyzes the reasons often given for the poor adoption of IPM and the solutions typically put forward as a way of solving this perceived problem. One approach has been to herald the introduction of technical fixes, such as the use of biotechnology and computer technology, to transform the situation and at a stroke make IPM more adoptable. Chapter 6 summarizes the broad context of resource-poor farmers within which any agricultural innovation, including IPM, has to operate. Farmers have many concerns, crop protection being but one of these, and a true attempt to include farmers in the process should not begin with an assumption that IPM will be the best way forward. In Chapter 7, we call for less emphasis on technical excellence and more on the development, with farmers, of practical ideas that farmers can implement. The literature on IPM is vast, and naturally a book of this size cannot claim to cover every statement and viewpoint written about IPM. Much of it exists in the form of academic journal papers, conference proceedings, books, and discussion papers, which are easily accessible. However, because IPM is much more than just an academic debate but purports to be a practical approach to crop protection, there is also a vast "gray" literature consisting of project reports and evaluations. This is far more difficult to access, partly because relatively few copies are produced and the circulation is limited. In addition, project evaluations tend to be for internal consumption only and are often not made freely available. As a compromise we have resorted wherever possible to the use of review papers and summary articles. There are many excellent examples of these, and some of the more accessible and relevant gray literature is often included. Therefore,

4

Introduction

for example, when we discuss the role of biotechnology within IPM we limit ourselves to the key points of relevance to our thesis and refer readers to some review articles if they desire to delve further into the topic. A recent development has been the rapid multiplication of IPM sites on the World Wide Web. Much of the material relates to the United States and covers documents such as annual reports of IPM projects, IPM newsletters, and IPM recommendations. There is even a World Wide Web textbook on IPM! With the recent launch of the IPM Initiative in the United States—a program that has as its goal the adoption of IPM over 75 percent of the crop area in the United States by the year 2000—the use of electronic means of IPM information dissemination will increase rather than decline in the near future. This material is accessible provided one has a suitable computer, modem, and software, and therefore we have included some references from the World Wide Web in this book. The speed at which this information is updated and accumulated does provide a problem with regard to referencing, and we have attempted to overcome this by providing the full site address along with date and time (Greenwich Mean Time [GMT]) when the site was accessed. Although this book is not intended to be an introductory text, we do wish to provide enough basic information on key concepts such as the "economic threshold" to allow nonspecialists to be able to appreciate some of the more technical dimensions of IPM. Therefore, in Chapters 1 and 2 we have provided some of this material without going too far into the technical intricacies of what is, in essence, applied ecology. For more technical detail, the interested reader is referred to the large number of excellent texts on IPM: for example, Flint and van den Bosch (1981); Burn, Coaker, and Jepson (1987); Dent (1991); and van Emden and Peakall (1996). In addition, we have touched upon other areas of relevance to our arguments that are in themselves vast topics with their own extensive literature. Two good examples are our debates about the relationship between IPM and the "farmer first" paradigm and the history of IPM in the United States. As always, the problem is one of trying to encapsulate such vast areas of knowledge in a very short space, and the knowledgeable reader will have to forgive some often sweeping generalizations. For a number of reasons, we have made extensive use of quotations throughout this book. To begin with, we wish to stress that IPM is not a "science" in the way that biology, physics, and chemistry are sciences. The law of gravity is a constant (at least in this universe), and its tenets and predictions can be tested rigorously. In contrast, IPM is a philosophy created by people living within a particular social context. There is no natural law of IPM that can be tested objectively and used to predict outcomes. Instead, IPM is a generic term that covers the opinions and views of many people, and these are often contradictory. Although it is true that IPM is founded on the science of applied ecology, it is an extension of that science

Introduction

5

into the realm of human culture, with all of its attendant imagination, arrogance, desires, and jealousies. A l l science, of course, exists within a social and cultural framework, but it may be no exaggeration to say that I P M has more in common with a Shakespearean play (As You Like It, maybe) than it does with science. The use of quotations helps to keep our debate firmly located within the human family and stresses the fact that much that is written on I P M is simply opinion. Second, quotations illustrate the richness of the I P M debate and how sometimes quite different v i e w s are accommodated under the same umbrella. I P M is a "privileged" philosophy in that it has entered the realm of politics. Presidents have made speeches mentioning IPM, and powerful government committees and aid agencies have agonized over its meaning and implementation. Development and research funding, amounting to millions of dollars, f l o w s into IPM, and consequently much has been written about the subject. We could, of course, have simply summarized the views of I P M researchers and practitioners, but this would inevitably have smeared the debate, and w e were keen to ensure that, as far as possible, the richness and diversity of opinion remained intact. Naturally w e cannot repeat everything that has been written and said about IPM, but w e hope the quotations succeed in providing a glimpse of the richness. Third, many of the points w e raise have been mentioned by others in a diverse range of publications, and this book does not purport to break new ground in the I P M debate, but instead attempts to condense these points into a single focused discussion. We hope doing so will strengthen the arguments being put forward. Indeed, although it has long been recognized that adoption of I P M is poor for a variety of reasons, only rarely has anyone questioned the basic assumption that I P M is the approach to be adopted. The reasons for the unassailable position of I P M are fascinating and say much about the cultural environment within which scientists have to work. The danger in using quotations is, of course, that they may be taken out of context. We have tried to avoid this as far as possible by ensuring that the quotes capture the essence of a point made at greater length in the source. Indeed, this is one reason why w e tended to avoid the gray literature on IPM, because readers would have greater difficulty in obtaining the reference and checking the context of the quotation. We have also tried, when the issue is particularly central to our case, to select multiple quotations from a variety of sources.

7 The Rise and Rise of IPM

Agriculture, Power, and Research Agriculture is an ancient and vital area of human activity and perhaps contrary to popular belief is far from being the sole domain of farmers. Politicians, policymakers, bureaucrats, businesspeople, scientists, educators, nutritionists, environmentalists, animal rights activists, and others too numerous to mention have an interest in agriculture and have helped influence its evolution. These groups, or, to use contemporary terminology, "actors" and "stakeholders," vary greatly in their vocality, prestige with the public, and power. For example, the public may believe what they hear from environmentalists and animal rights activists far more than what they are told by politicians and farmers, yet in developed countries power often resides in the hands of these latter groups. The visibility of the group's involvement in agriculture can also be quite varied. The fact that farming is an activity carried out by farmers is, of course, apparent to most people, but how many would be aware of the extent of scientific research in agriculture? Ironically, it can be argued that the only time that much of the general public is reminded of the scientists' involvement is when there is environmental damage or when there is a food scare linked to production (e.g., the disease Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy [BSE] found in beef, and the debate surrounding its origin and transmission to other animals, including humans). Each of the groups concerned with agriculture sees the activity through different lenses, and in many cases their views may not coincide with the views of farmers or, indeed, other groups. Although this diversity is very healthy and necessary, it can lead to problems because many of the interest groups are not directly involved in food production. Scientists provide an excellent example. Because of various pressures, scientists have had to specialize in a particular facet of agriculture. For example, a scientist may become not just a crop protection specialist or even an entomologist 7

8

The Rise and Rise of IPM

(someone who studies a particular group of pests—the insects) but a specialist in a particular family of insect pests, such as aphids. Although specialization is good, if not vital, for the career of the scientist, it may drive the research priorities rather than be led by what farmers and others want. This has long been recognized, although it is interesting to note that most studies of this conundrum have taken place in developing countries. Farmers in developed countries are a powerful political lobby and have a habit of getting from research what they want, although some would argue that this power has waned and that even these farmers have really become just "consumers of production techniques" developed by agribusiness (Capra, 1983). What is beyond doubt is that farmers in developing countries have far less power than their equivalents in developed countries, and clearly here the dangers of spending money on inappropriate research are greatest. Crop protection is only one facet of agriculture, but in some ways it is the most diverse and complex. A great deal of money and person-hours are spent on research in crop protection, and it attracts much attention from politicians and policymakers. Much of this attention is linked to the widespread use of pesticides as a tool in crop protection, and the resultant concerns about their negative environmental impact. Even so, the potential warnings about inappropriate research outlined above are as applicable to crop protection as they are to any other facet of agriculture, and it is these that form the basis of this book.

Problems in Crop Protection Many textbooks on crop protection justify the importance of the subject by beginning with a statement that runs something like, "we need crop protection because approximately a third of annual crop production is lost to pests" (insects, diseases, weeds, rodents, birds, etc.). The often-quoted figure of a third is, of course, only a guesstimate, and to some extent the exact figure is unimportant. The main point is that these losses can be substantial. Some estimations of crop losses are provided by Youdeowei and Service (1983) and Adams (1990). In addition, pests can also reduce the quality of a harvest as well as its quantity. Quality of food has become increasingly important to consumers, and even if a pest has no effect on the quantity of crop produced, it could reduce its value or make it unsalable because of unsightly blemishes. The combination of quantitative and qualitative damage leads naturally to the need for some form of crop protection in order to help limit these losses, and methods of pest control are diverse and often ancient. However, although crop protection is important, care has to be taken to avoid the assumption that it is the main consideration of farmers. Pests are

The Rise and Rise of IPM

9

not the only causes of yield reduction, and factors such as soil fertility and availability of water may be far more important in a particular situation. Indeed, the assumption that increasing yield or even profit are always among the major concerns of farmers is a gross oversimplification. The problem posed by pests is not by any means a new one. It can be argued that the pest pressure farmers face worldwide is now greater than it was (Brader, 1988), but the problem has existed as long as agriculture has (Ordish, 1976). For many years the farmer was alone in the fight against the pest complex, although governments often lent a hand by funding crop protection research. Methods of pest control were diverse and often quite pest specific. They are typically grouped as shown in Table 1.1 (see, for example, van Emden, 1974). However, over the last forty years or so the farmer has received substantial reinforcements. Almost overnight, crop protection became big business, and many companies now compete to sell their latest solution to the farmer. This shift revolved around the industrialization of agriculture in developed countries and the discovery of organic pesticides—chemicals that could be easily manufactured, stored, and applied, and that were extremely effective in killing pests. Early insecticides were typically based on natural plant toxins (pyrethrum, nicotine, derris) and toxic inorganic compounds (arsenic, copper, etc.). The use of these chemicals was seen as a great benefit in agriculture, although their toxic effects on other animals, particularly of the inorganic compounds, was recognized. Indeed, a poem was even written that praises the use of chemicals in crop protection: Spray, farmers, spray with care, Spray the apple, peach and pear; Spray for scab, and spray for blight, Spray, O spray, and do it right. . . Spray your grapes, spray them well, Table 1.1

Summary of Crop Protection Methods

Group

Examples

Chemical Controls Physical Controls Cultural Controls

Insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, avicides, rodenticides Hand-picking, use of brooms/branches to beat pests Crop rotation, burning crop residue, intercropping, trap cropping

Biological Controls (Biocontrol) Varietal Control Legislation Others

Introduction/encouragement of natural enemies Resistant plant varieties Quarantine, control of movement of plants, enforced rotation Sterile male techniques, repellents/attractants, pheromones, competitive displacement

10

The Rise and Rise of IPM

M a k e first class what y o u ' v e to sell, The very best is none too good, You can have it, if you w o u l d . Spray your roses, for the slug, Spray the fat potato bug; Spray your cantaloupes, spray them thin, You must fight if you w o u l d win. Spray for blight, and spray for rot, Take g o o d care of what y o u ' v e got; Spray farmers, spray with care, Spray, O Spray the buglets there. —Packard,

1906; cited in Zehnder

(1994)

DDT, an example of a synthetic organic insecticide, was developed just prior to World War II and was used extensively during that conflict as a way of controlling typhus-bearing lice. It also became widely used in agriculture, and other insecticides were quickly developed, some related to DDT and others from very different chemical groups. Since the 1940s four main groups of organic insecticides have been developed (Table 1.2; Ware, 1996). The mode of action of these chemicals (i.e., how they kill insects) varies greatly, but most operate on the nervous system (Bloomquist, 1996; Ware, 1996). The nervous system is very similar across a wide range of insect families, and there are fundamental similarities with the nervous systems of vertebrates, so there is clearly the potential for insecticides to be toxic to organisms other than the targeted pest. With large-scale and indiscriminate use of insecticides soon after World War II, it was almost inevitable that environmental problems associated with the use of these chemicals would quickly surface. The development of organic pesticides proved to be both a tremendous gain to humankind as well as a source of much damage. These chemicals boosted agricultural production to new highs, but at the same time polluted the biosphere and killed many animals that were not causing crop loss or, even worse, helped prevent it (the natural enemies, predators and parasites, of the pests). Many of these chemicals, especially the insecticides, are toxic to humans, and great care has to be taken when handling and using

Table 1.2

The Four Main Groups of Organic Insecticides

Period

Group of Insecticides

Examples

1940s 1950s/1960s 1960s/1970s 1970s/1980s

Organochlorines Organophosphates Carbamates Pyrethroids

DDT, dieldrin, aldrin, HCH Parathion, malathion Carbaryl, pirimicarb, aldicarb Permethrin, Cypermethrin

The Rise and Rise of IPM 11 them. Indeed, although developing countries account for relatively little of the total pesticides used every year, they have the highest rates of pesticide poisoning in humans (Adams, 1990; Beaumont, 1993). The reasons for this are typically linked to poor labeling and farmer education (Beaumont, 1993), although there are other factors (Adams, 1990). There are other problems with pesticide use besides the obvious dangers of toxicity. Repeated application of the same pesticide ultimately selects for resistance on the part of the pest (Adams, 1990; Beaumont, 1993). As a result, the farmer must apply more and more pesticide to achieve the same effect, thereby worsening even further the environmental damage. This vicious circle finally leads to collapse of some agricultural systems with highly resistant pests and no natural enemies left to control them. In addition, pesticides are expensive, and in many developing countries they have to be heavily subsidized by the government before many farmers can afford them. These problems with pesticides were identified and even predicted by scientists early on in the pesticide era, but it took others to bring this to the wider attention of the public. Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring (Carson, 1962), was one of the first and most influential in this regard. The title invokes the silence that will occur when birds are killed as a result of ingesting poison remaining in the bodies of insects upon which they feed. Indeed, these concerns (among others) have driven the "evolution" of insecticides and insecticide use, and one can see four predominant trends as part of this process: 1. A decrease in the persistence of the chemical in the environment (increase in water solubility as opposed to fat solubility). 2. The introduction of insecticides that are more selective (i.e., are less harmful to nontarget organisms, including humans). 3. A movement toward low application rates of product/area. This includes developments in application technology such as the ultralow volume (ULV) sprayers, which employ "spinning disc" and "electrostatic" technologies (Mathews, 1979). 4. The development and use of pest "thresholds." The pesticide is only applied once the pest has reached a particular predetermined level. This "evolution" has been partly responsible for a steady decline in the application of insecticides in some developed countries. For example, in the United States there has been a 51 percent reduction in insecticide application over the period from 1979 to 1991 (Larson, 1996). The story of organic pesticides is by now a very familiar one, which has been extensively covered by a number of authors (Ordish, 1976; Beaumont, 1993; van Emden and Peakall, 1996), and we have no wish to discuss

12

The Rise and Rise of IPM

at length all of the issues here. The picture is a very complex one, and the trends mentioned previously do not necessarily remove the potential for damage. For example, reduced quantity does not necessarily mean less toxicity. Also, greater selectivity can lead to problems with opportunistic insects filling the void and becoming pests. Finally, as pesticides have become more complex, their research and development costs have also risen; the growth of environmentalism and the increased stringency of safety standards have also added costs to development. The farmer and taxpayer have to pay for these increased costs. The environmental problems unleashed by pesticide use on a massive scale forced a dramatic change in the thinking of agricultural policymakers, crop protection scientists, and practitioners. A new theme became dominant—that of integrating crop protection technologies (Michelbacher and Bacon, 1952). The idea was simple, although the practice often was not. Pesticides were to be used in such a way as to cause minimal damage to the pest's natural enemies, which are usually other insect species (Michelbacher and Bacon, 1952; Stern et al., 1959; Debach, 1974). The main thrust was to only apply pesticide when the size of the pest population warranted it (i.e., when the population exceeded a predetermined target level at which the cost of control became economical), therefore leading to less pesticide use (Stern et al., 1959). It was argued that less pesticide would mean less damage to the natural-enemy complex and the environment and have the added bonus of being cheaper for the farmer. In addition a call was made for pesticides to be more pest-specific and have less toxicity to the naturalenemy complex (Stern et al., 1959; van den Bosch and Stern, 1962). The most common term employed for this use of pesticides so as to minimize detrimental effects on natural enemies of the pest is Integrated Pest Control (IPC). The term "integrated" was perhaps misleading because the primary determinant of the application threshold was crop economics and not damage to natural enemies or indeed environmental toxicity. Practitioners set out, not to determine by extensive research how to apply the pesticide to minimize this damage, but when and how best to apply it to maintain yield, with environmental benefits assumed rather than actively determined and planned. Hence, some preferred, with some justification, to use terms such as "coordinated control," "modified spray program," and "pesticide management" rather than "integration." Also, because the emphasis was on modifying the use of pesticides rather than replacing them, IPC can be seen in a narrow sense as the antithesis of unrestricted pesticide use rather than as a quantum leap in crop protection. Pesticides are still center stage, but their use is now more finely tuned, and the assumption is that environmental damage will be reduced as a result. Thus, the theory of IPC, whereby farmers could become less dependent on pesticides and manufacturers could reduce the risks of insect resistance and environmental damage, became a policy worth pursuing.

The Rise and Rise of IPM

13

Of course, farmers have long practiced a mix of different control techniques (e.g., crop rotation with resistant varieties). Indeed, in the 1960s a group in Europe promoted the concept of "harmonic control," which was, in essence, integration without pesticides. Today the term IPC covers any combination of different control technologies, although at its heart still lies this concept of wiser use of pesticides. Technology integration does not necessarily imply that the pest population will be monitored on a regular basis. For example, if farmers combine crop rotation with the use of resistant or partially resistant crop varieties, then their only concern is that the combination is effective. There is no need to continually monitor the pest density (e.g., by sampling plants in the field and counting the number of insect pests or presence of lesions). However, if pesticides are included in the mix, then farmers have to have some idea of the threshold pest density, and they also must be able to monitor the pests in order to check when they reach the threshold density. The first of these requirements, the determination of a threshold, has primarily been the responsibility of researchers, whereas the second has been seen essentially as a problem of communication and training. The quantity and quality of research that go to make up a particular threshold and its associated sampling program vary enormously, with some being based on nothing more than a guess arrived at through field experience. The next evolutionary step from integration of control technologies also partly resulted from the popularity of pesticide use and the subsequent problems. However, this step represented much more of a quantum leap in crop protection than did IPC. A whole new dimension was introduced— that of managing the pest population below an acceptable level (Figure 1.1). The term "pest management" was first introduced in Australia (Geier

Figure 1.1 The Three Dimensions of Crop Protection Management of pest numbers

Integration of control technologies (e.g., pesticide with biocontrol) Single control technologies (e.g., use of a pesticide)

14

The Rise and Rise of IPM

and Clark, 1961) and adopted and promoted in North America during the 1960s and early 1970s. At first glance pest management may seem to be no different from IPC, and indeed, some make little distinction between them. After all, a central tenet of pesticide-based IPC was to apply the pesticide only when the pest density warranted it—a decision/action process that may be regarded as "management." However, prior to this new dimension the emphasis was simply on control or restraint of the pest population within a localized area and for a relatively short period. Pest management sought to broaden the horizon considerably by incorporating advances in ecological techniques and knowledge. Although the new approach took root in the 1960s, its principles were much older (Frisbie and Adkisson, 1985). The two strands, IPC and pest management, were later combined in the United States to produce a hybrid approach: Integrated Pest Management (IPM) (see Table 1.3). IPM is one of modern agriculture's soundest innovations. —Integrated Pest Management (1996) The nature of the quantum leap from pest control to pest management has been and continues to be the subject of much debate, which will be covered later in some depth. Although there are many distinctions made between the two, the difference is essentially philosophical. Management is taken to imply a deep sense of respect for and cooperation with nature, with pests tolerated to a degree and intervention by humans carefully thought through so as to minimize or eliminate any detrimental impact on the environment. Like IPC, IPM limits or even eliminates pesticide use because it is fundamentally incompatible with the idea of cooperation with and respect for nature. Indeed, IPM for many equates to a "green" (pesticide-free) form of crop protection, and this in part helps to explain its appeal—since its emergence as a distinct philosophy it has become the dominant paradigm in crop protection and has remained so for over thirty years. It has been said that IPM has acted as the "philosophical precursor" for another popular philosophy, namely sustainable agriculture (Allen and

Table 1.3 Crop Protection Approach

A Matrix of Crop Protection Approaches Crop Protection Technologies Single

Control

Single control

Management

Pest management

Multiple Integrated Pest Control (IPC) Integrated Pest Management (IPM)

The Rise and Rise of IPM

15

Rajotte, 1990). The IPM philosophy has also helped spawn Integrated Disease Management and Integrated Crop Management (ICM). The latter is currently receiving much emphasis in agriculture, although its exact meaning, like that of IPM, is subject to some disagreement and debate. It has been described by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) as follows: Integrated crop management (ICM) embraces all activities in the production system and is composed of several management activities focusing on particular constraints, such as integrated pest management (IPM), integrated nutrient management, integrated water management (IWM) etc. ICM is concerned with managing a production system to optimize the use of natural resources, reduce environmental risk and maximise output. The goals of a particular management system are dependent upon natural, socio-economic and technological resources and their inter-relationships. —FAO, 1991; quoted in Zadoks (1993) According to this definition, IPM is seen as a subset of ICM, and indeed can be seen as part of an even grander enterprise: "Pest management should not be seen as isolated exercises, but as part of integrated land management" (Zethner, 1991).

The Dominance of IPM The common conception of IPM is that, like its precursor IPC, it was born out of the crisis brought on by unrestricted use of pesticides. Integrated pest management (IPM) came from crisis. The collapse of cotton production in parts of southern USA and Mexico in the late 1950s prompted change. IPM was conjured as a rational, balanced approach to pest problems that promised to use a waning arsenal of synthetic organic pesticides more frugally. —Barfield and Swisher (1994) Although the initial ideas behind IPM came out of a environmental crisis created by pesticides, others have seen the more recent development of IPM as being driven by economic factors: "The driving force behind USA research and development in IPM since the 1970s has been profit. . . . Concerns over environmental contamination by input-orientated agriculturalists were not the major concerns by the majority of producers and those who advised them" (Barfield and Swisher, 1994). Whatever the forces at play in the instigation of IPM, the main group that promoted its adoption was not farmers or politicians but scientists. Indeed, since its inception in the 1960s, IPM has become the dominant paradigm in crop protection, a fact that has real practical importance in both

16

The Rise and Rise of IPM

research and development. The paradigm approach to understanding science is based on the idea that there are "long periods in the development of scientific work during which scientists take for granted and are committed to a particular view of the world" (Albury and Schwartz, 1982). Paradigms have a major influence on the direction of both research and implementation (Perkins, 1982; Pepper, 1984), and many crop protection research programs are "moulded by the IPM paradigm" (Norton, 1987). Postgraduate and undergraduate courses in IPM have sprung up all over the world (Luna and House, 1990), and development agencies have laid a strong emphasis on IPM in their aid programs. For example, the Overseas Development Administration (ODA), the development arm of the British government, has recently stated that "a key objective is the development of integrated pest management strategies which emphasise low cost, appropriate and environmentally acceptable biological and agronomic control systems" (ODA, 1994, Article 150, p. 47). The FAO International Code of Conduct on the Distribution and Use of Pesticides (endorsed by many countries and industry and environmental groups in 1985) also emphasizes the need for the "development and application" of IPM (Brader, 1988). In fact, the FAO has been one of the major proponents of IPM worldwide for many years. The FAO Plant Production and Protection Division considers IPM to be of utmost importance and is continually striving to increase worldwide awareness of IPM. —Challenges (1990) FAO considers IPM—real IPM and not some watered-down activity that continues to rely on pesticides as the main input—to be ecologically the best approach to crop protection —Brader (1988), emphases added The FAO is by no means alone in its enthusiasm for IPM as the way forward in developing countries. IPM is the concept of the future for achieving environmentally compatible agriculture. —Deutsche Cesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit, the German government aid agency (1992); quoted in Jeger (1995) Major agricultural projects, research centres and funding programs such as the FAO program for rice production in Southeast Asia, IRRI and ICRISAT's IPM programs, IPM programs sponsored by USAID, and the Club de Sahel in Africa, emphasize IPM to the exclusion of single-strategy crop protection approaches. —Goodell (1989)

The Rise and Rise of IPM

17

IPM is considered to be the best approach to crop protection activities in developing countries. —Van Huis, Meerman, and Takken (1990) The future for crop protection in developing countries depends upon the use of IPM approaches within the context of the holistic development of natural resource production systems. —R. W. Smith (1996) Indeed, in some cases aid is conditional on the incorporation of IPM. As Schulten has astutely recognized: The term IPM is nowadays used rather loosely and may refer to a concept, strategy, system, method or package of pest control measures. It seems also to become more and more used to give an aura of credibility to recommended pest control methods or to project proposals. —Schulten (1989a, 1989b) Others are seeking to make the implementation of IPM a condition of receiving loans from the World Bank (Stone, 1992). Indeed, the World Bank had an operational directive (OD 4.03) in place between 1992 and 1996 that stated: "The Bank's policy is to promote effective and environmentally sound pest management practices in Bank-supported agricultural development" (World Bank, 1992). It is, however, interesting to note that OD 4.03 was replaced in 1996 by an operation policy (OP 4.09; World Bank, 1996) that some have criticized as laying far less emphasis on promoting IPM. In OP 4.09 the World Bank seeks to "support integrated pest management" rather than promote it, and this has been interpreted by some pressure groups as the bank changing its mind and viewing IPM as a sort of "best practice" that may not necessarily be practical in some situations. IPM is now government policy in a number of developing countries (Zadoks, 1993), but they are not the only governments who have embraced IPM. In the United States an IPM Initiative was developed in 1994 with the express goal of IPM implementation "on 75% of the nation's crop acres" within a six- to seven-year period (Jacobsen, 1996). Funding for the IPM Initiative was first sought by the Clinton administration in 1996 ($189.7 million), and the total federal investment in the 1997 financial year is estimated to be $204.9 million. Prior to this initiative a great deal of federal money (approximately $180 million/year) had already been spent on IPM research and education, and indeed the appropriation for the IPM Initiative also includes funds for other related programs (Jacobsen, 1996). The result of this drive for IPM has been a rapid increase in the number of publications that mention pest management. Figure 1.2 illustrates

18

The Rise and Rise of IPM

Figure 1.2 Number of Publication Abstracts Referring to Pest Management

Number of publications 300 -T

73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94

Year the result of a brief search through a collection of crop protection abstracts from 1973 to 1994. As can be seen, the increase was very rapid between 1973 and the early 1980s; the output has been sustained at around 150 to 200 publications per year since the mid-1980s. In spite of its almost universal popularity with scientists, development workers, and, to some extent, policymakers, there is a great deal of debate as to what IPM is. Probably the most commonly held view of IPM in practice (not theory) is that it represents a sort of pesticide management program with the central aim being a reduction in pesticide use. The emphasis in these programs is typically upon the derivation of pest thresholds to determine when pesticides are applied, the education and training of farmers to use these thresholds, and the improvement of extension services to make the thresholds widely known. In this view, IPM resembles IPC, and frankly the wiser use of pesticide, like motherhood and apple pie, cannot really be argued against and is even supported by the pesticide industry. However, the true meaning of IPM, the one that many scientists support, is much more complex than this, and it is here that we see the danger. Real IPM (as opposed to pesticide management) is an approach to crop protection that depends heavily on detailed knowledge of the agro-ecosystem (the agricultural equivalent of the ecosystem), including its socioeconomic components. Real IPM represents the realization of the applied ecologist's

The Rise and Rise of IPM

19

dream, and few people have questioned whether it is the best answer in circumstances far different from those for which it was originally conceived. Although, as will be discussed in depth later, IPM originated in the high-input agricultural systems of developed countries, particularly North America, it is interesting to note that it has been heavily emphasized as the appropriate system of crop protection in developing countries, even in areas that have not historically had a high level of pesticide use. It is true that many areas in the developing world, especially those centered around the production of cotton for export, did pass through the pesticide treadmill and collected all of the associated problems, and here one would expect the Western approach of IPM to be both applicable and indeed popular. However, many other agricultural systems in the tropics are very different from those in developed countries, and for various reasons the use of pesticides, or indeed agricultural inputs in general, never remotely approached their use in developed countries. As Way (1977) says: "In general, the regular use of pesticides in developing countries is limited to the relatively small areas of high value cash crops." Yet real IPM has been and continues to be strongly promoted in those countries, whereas in developed countries the watered-down version is promoted, and even here, as will be discussed later, it can be argued that adoption rates are sporadic to say the least. Finally, IPM is seen by some as not just concerned, rather narrowly, with crop protection. It has even been suggested that, "at its most successful, IPM has the potential to become a social movement, recognised and embraced as [a] major vehicle for social and agricultural development" (Moore, 1996).

Variations on a Theme: Different Views of IPM Most accept IPM as a crop protection philosophy, broad approach, or strategy rather than a technology in itself, and although it is based on science, it also can be seen as an art. Integrated pest management is a science-based strategy. —Jacobsen

(1996)

IPM is as much art as science. It looks a little different on every field, every year. —.Alms (1996)

Although practitioners disagree on details and emphasis, most accept that two distinctive components lie at the heart of IPM. The first of these, integration, is usually seen as the integration of control technologies along

20

The Rise and Rise of IPM

the same lines as the integrated control concept mentioned earlier. However, Allen and Bath (1980) consider this component in a broader sense, encompassing not only the conventional view but also the fact that IPM: • is both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary (i,e., involves many disciplines as well as links between disciplines) • addresses economic, ecological, and social concerns • is only one component of a total agro-ecosystem management program The second key component is pest population management (maintenance of the population below a threshold). Indeed, it is probably the meaning of the term "management" in IPM that causes workers in this field to differ. Integration is easily visualised and understood and is generally taken to be a synonym for "mixture." Management, however, means very different things to different people, and unless one has a clear idea of what management involves then it will be difficult to plan an IPM program (Tait, 1987). At one extreme, some have used the term "pest management" in a very general sense to capture the struggle between humans and pests: Pest management includes all approaches ranging from a single control method, i.e. the repetitive application of a broad spectrum insecticide schedule without regard to population densities or economic injury levels, to the most sophisticated integrated control systems. Thus pest management is a general term which applies to any form of pest population manipulation invoked by man, its objective being to optimize control in terms of overall economic, social and environmental needs of mankind. —FAO Pane/ of Experts, 1972; quoted in Kumar (1990) The definitions put forward by the FAO Panel of Experts have been influential, although they do not equate to the terminology widely employed by crop protection specialists today (Table 1.4). The FAO Panel of Experts viewed the term "IPC" as identical to the term "IPM" (Brader, 1979), and this view has been very persistent (Bottrell, 1987). The two certainly have much in common (van Emden, 1974). Luna and House (1990) suggest that North Americans employ the term "IPM" whereas Europeans prefer to use "integrated control." However, the current usage of the terms by many does distinguish between pest management and pest control, and this difference is seen as more than just semantics; it expresses a real and substantive progression in crop protection. A major strength of IPM as a management strategy is the integration of tools into a coherent efficient system. Integral to the system is the idea of "managing" rather than "controlling" the pest complex, including insects, diseases and weeds. —Edelson (1994)

The Rise and Rise of IPM Table T .4

Comparison of the Relationship Between the Terms "Control" and "Management" Current Viewpoint

FAO Panel of Experts

CROP PROTECTION

PEST MANAGEMENT

CONTROL Single pest control

21

Integrated pest control

MANAGEMENT Pest management

Integrated pest management

Single pest control

Integrated pest control

Pest "management" and "pest control" are often mistaken to mean the same thing. —Barf¡eld and Swisher (1994) Discussion suggests that research and practice in pest activities may be best understood in terms of a movement characterized by concepts of "control" to "management" of pests. —Gabriel (1989) The following list of IPM definitions illustrates the different viewpoints of workers in the field. For the sake of illustrating the diversity of emphasis, the definitions have been grouped depending upon whether the authors have mentioned or emphasized a particular dimension of IPM. However, given the broad nature of many IPM definitions, they could, of course, be regrouped in many ways. It is also interesting to note that IPM is "probably one of the few scientific terms that ever has been redefined by a President of the United States" (Frisbie and Adkisson, 1985).

Emphasis on Thresholds and Economic Injury A pest population management system that utilises all suitable techniques in a compatible manner to reduce pest populations and maintain them at levels below those causing economic injury. —Smith and Reynolds, 1966; quoted in Wearing (1988) A concept of pest control in which all control techniques are evaluated and consolidated into a unified programme to manage pest populations so that economic injury is prevented and any detrimental effects to the environment are minimized. —National Academy of Sciences (1969) Pest management system that, in the context of the associated environment and population dynamics of the pest species, utilizes all suitable techniques and methods in as compatible a manner as possible and maintains pest populations at levels below those causing economic injury. —Entomological Society of America, 1975; quoted in Kumar (1990)

22

The Rise and Rise of IPM

The optimization of pest control measures in an economically and ecologically sound manner, accomplished by the coordinated use of multiple tactics to assure stable crop production and maintain pest damage below the economic injury level while minimizing hazards to humans, animals, plants and the environment. —OTA (1990) Management activities that are carried out by farmers that result in potential pest populations being maintained below densities at which they become pests, without endangering the productivity and profitability of the farming system as a whole, the health of the farm family and its livestock, and the quality of the adjacent and downstream environments. —Wightman (1993)

Mention of Social Factors Within IPM A desirable approach to the selection, integration, and use of methods on the basis of their anticipated economic, ecological and sociological consequences. —USDA Policy on Management of Pest Problems, quoted in Allen and Bath (1980) The selection, integration, and implementation of pest control based on predicted economic, ecological and sociological consequences. — Bottrell (1979) Integrated pest management is the farmer's "best mix" of crop protection strategies based on the criteria of crop yield, profit, safety and sociological constraints. —Wood (1988)

Emphasis on Nonchemical Control Within IPM A systems approach to reduce pest damage to tolerable levels through a variety of techniques, including predators and parasites, genetically resistant hosts, natural environmental modifications, and when necessary and appropriate, chemical pesticides. —President Jimmy Carter's environmental message to Congress, 1979; quoted in Frisbie and Adkisson (1985) A method of pest management which decreases (and perhaps even avoids) the use of non-selective methods of suppression, especially those involving toxic materials that the environment accumulates more rapidly than it can degrade. —Corbet (1981) The use of all appropriate techniques of controlling pests in an integrated manner that enhances rather than destroys natural controls. If

The Rise and Rise of IPM pesticides are part of the programme, they are used sparingly and selectively so as not to interfere with natural enemies. —Conway and Barbier (1990) A strategy of pest containment that seeks to maximise the effectiveness of biological and cultural control factors, utilizing chemical controls only as needed and with a minimum of environmental disturbance. —Luna and House (1990) IPM is a harmonious combination of the best available pest control measures minimizing the use of chemicals that interfere with natural control measures. —Kaaya (1994)

Emphasis on the "Knowledge-Intensive" Nature of IPM The reduction of pest problems by actions selected after the lifesystems of the pests are understood and the ecological as well as economic consequences of these actions have been predicted, as accurately as possible, to be in the best interest of mankind. —Rabb (1970) IPM systems should be designed to balance pests and beneficial organisms based on known economic, social and ecological consequences. —Altieri (1987) Presently, IPM is a systematic approach to crop protection that uses increased information and improved decision-making paradigms to reduce purchased inputs and improve economic, social and environmental conditions on the farm and in society. —Allen and Rajotte (1990)

Emphasis on Risk IPM is defined as a sustainable approach to managing pests by combining biological, cultural, physical and chemical tools in a way that minimises economic, health and environmental risks. —Jacobsen (1996)

Broad Definitions A crop protection system that integrates methodologies across all crop protection disciplines in a fashion that is compatible with the crop production system. —Apple and Smith (1976) The farmer's best mix of control tactics in comparison with yields, profits and safety of alternatives. —lies and Sweetmore (1991)

23

24

The Rise and Rise of IPM

Table 1.5

Ecological Synopsis of Procedures Followed to Reduce the Injuriousness of Noxious Insects

, . Intervention Agents (e.g., Pesticides)

Success of Control Procedures 3

T

Unsatisfactory

Acceptable (practical IPM)

Good (ideal IPM)

None

Use of permanent but unreliable mortality agents resulting in undependable containment

Use of permanent mortality agents, reliable singly or in combination, to produce dependable containment

Measures to curtail the supply of requisites of pests

Periodic

Intermittent interventions to supplement undependable containment

Intermittent interventions to restore conditions for effective containment

Use of devices to divert pests from, or deny them access to, requisites in permanent supply

Continuing

Arbitrary use of pesticides to reduce injurious populations

Systematic use of pesticides to contain potentially injurious populations

Use of nonpersistent means to suppress or mask requisites in permanent supply

Source: P. W. Geier. (1966). Management of insect pests. Annual Review of Entomology 11: 471-490. Note: a. Degree of assurance offered that their use will regularly and lastingly achieve the measure of protection required.

An ecologically-based pest control strategy which is part of the overall crop production system. —Zalom

etal.

(1992)

Integrated pest management (IPM) is an ecologically-based disease and insect control strategy which represents only a part of an overall crop production system. —What

is IPM?

(1996)

The examples listed above make it clear that different authors have emphasized different elements of IPM that they perceive as being important. Indeed, it can be argued that although the term "IPM" is a commonality, it refers to a spectrum of approaches to crop protection. It is interesting to note that one of the earliest attempts at defining pest management located it within a spectrum of crop protection options (Geier, 1966; Table 1.5). Pest management is defined by the middle and right-hand columns in Table 1.5, although in practice the "acceptable" actions in the middle column are the ones actually practiced, given the fact that those in the right-hand column are not feasible for "biological and practical reasons" (Geier, 1966). The middle column of Table 1.5 represents a spectrum of

The Rise and Rise of IPM

25

approaches within pest management based on the "relative frequency of the interventions needed to implement them against persistent populations" (Geier, 1966). At one extreme, IPM is simply equated with "responsible pest control" (Schulten, 1989a, 1989b), or even as a "convenient label" (Geier, 1966). The following authors agree: IPM has become a convenient term sometimes used to describe any combination of measures for control of a pest. —Bottrell (1987) The term " I P M " has become so common and so bastardized that everyone (from the practitioner totally committed to pesticides to the "organic" grower who avoids inputs) will tell you they are practicing IPM. —Barf¡eld and Swisher (1994) However, the total absence of standards or even a common general understanding of what constitutes legitimate IPM also presents serious problems. First it means that a de facto standard of "anything goes" prevails by default. —Moore (1996)

It is not the purpose of this book to choose any one of these definitions above any other, and instead IPM will be taken to mean an amalgam of the ideas expressed in each. Instead of focusing on IPM definitions, we propose instead to concentrate on the key distinction between control and management which, as we described in the previous section, lies at the heart of IPM. Within this context we will also examine the reasons for the diversity of IPM definitions. It should also be noted that management of a pest population does not necessarily require the use of a number of different control technologies (i.e., integration). It could be achieved with just one—for example, pesticides. Indeed, some distinguish pest management from IPM for this very reason (van Emden, 1974). IPM could then be viewed as a fusion of two different crop protection philosophies, one of which stresses the need for integration, while the other is concerned with management of the pest population.

Management Versus Control The concept of pest management evolved out of pest control practiced solely with pesticides, and the differences between them are often described in terms that reflect this origin. It should be noted here that differences between control and management do not originate from changes in crop protection technology. The shift has primarily occurred in the minds

The Rise and Rise of IPM

26

of those who visualize and solve pest problems. In other words, the change is in the philosophy of how pest problems should be tackled, and technical adjustments follow from this. Differences between control and management have been drawn in many ways, and some of the most commonly mentioned distinctions are presented in Table 1.6. To begin with, the difference has typically been presented as a conflict of human arrogance or "respect for nature." • Control—humans bludgeoning the pest into submission • Management—a more subtle approach, implying respect for nature and a humbler desire to modify populations rather than bludgeon them The following quotation from one of the pioneers of pest management encapsulates the cruder nature of control relative to management: "In essence, pest control is the product of technology, defined as the study of devices to impose man's will on nature, and of biology. Conceived as a mere exercise in technology, pest control amounts to hardly more than bulldozing nature without thought to consequences, and frequently creates more problems than it solves" (Geier, 1966). Stoner, Sawyer, and Shelton (1986) make other comments in a similar vein, especially in relation to the use of pesticides (chemical control): "Chemical control is philosophically based on a sense of nature dominated by human technology." Management conveys a more subtle approach to dealing with pests: T h e term [pest management] has no other v a l u e than that of a c o n venient label. It was c o i n e d to e m p h a s i z e the c o m p r e h e n s i v e nature of the a p p r o a c h , and to u n d e r l i n e its preoccupation with e c o l o g i c a l realities. It is intended to c o n v e y the idea of intelligent m a n i p u l a t i o n of nature for man's lasting benefit, as in "wildlife management." —Geier (1966)

Table 1.6

Summary of Differences Between Control and Management

Characteristic

Control

Management

Arrogance

Pest is bludgeoned into submission

More subtle approach implying respect for nature

Social issues

Not taken into account

Taken into account

Sustainability (time)

Direct intervention with no thought for balance over time

Aim is a balanced system

Knowledge

Relatively little requirement for knowledge of pest population, etc.

Relatively large requirement for knowledge of pest population, etc.

Actions

Less diverse range of actions Each pest treated separately

More diverse range of actions Pest complex is considered

Space

Operates on a field or plot level

Operates over a much larger spatial dimension

The Rise and Rise of IPM

27

IPM is derived from a more naturalistic philosophy in which people cannot totally control nature. —Stoner, Sawyer, and Shelton (1986) A slightly different view can be taken in terms of sustainability, itself a concept that is only meaningful within a time dimension: Management implies the continued existence of the pest within a balanced system that itself imposes control. Control suggests direct intervention with little concern for sustainability. —M'Boob (1994) This view implies that management operates over a longer time than does control. Control could occur over a growing season, whereas management is something that should be almost indefinite. In a practical sense, the difference between the two can be viewed in terms of their knowledge-action components and in their interface (Figure 1.3). It may be argued that control is less dependent on knowledge of pest and natural enemy dynamics than management, and the range of actions employed may be less diverse. One reason for this is that management is typically applied to the pest complex as a whole, including diseases and weeds, whereas control is a term often restricted to just one organism. Indeed, it is the all-embracing nature of management that is often championed as its key distinction from control, which tended to have a more limited horizon (a single pest species in a single field in a single season). Indeed, at its extreme, pest management does not consider just the harmful organisms but also includes other agronomic considerations (e.g., soil fertility) as well as human social systems, including economics. The clear implication of such an increase in complexity is an increase in the need for knowledge about how all these components interact. In pest management the knowledge required is varied, but at its heart is a thirst for

Figure 1.3 The Differences Between Pest Control and Management in Terms of Knowledge and Action

•

KNOWLEDGE Size

Control Management

small large

Number of Links few many

Complexity of Links little great

ACTION Size

small large

Note: Management is much more intensive in terms of the knowledge about pest(s) and natural enemy population dynamics, and the diversity of options considered as a means of reducing the size of the pest population.

28

The Rise and Rise of IPM

fundamental biological information regarding the pest and its natural enemy complex. "Management" demands firm and robust knowledge on pest biology, ecology and behaviour. "Control" most often means simply killing pests. Those who argue that these two terms are synonymous really do not understand the philosophical bases of IPM. We still have a lot of people who are trying to "control" pests, under the guise of IPM. —Barfield and Swisher (1994) In addition, the range of measures employed for reducing pest numbers increases within management relative to control. For example, instead of simply relying on pesticides the farmer may be encouraged to include a number of the methods listed in Table 1.1. The term IPM emphasizes a radical shift in pest control philosophy. The basic aim remains the minimizing and prevention of losses caused by pests. However, the tools used for this purpose are now more in number and some quite complex in their operations. —Kumar (1990) To some extent this diversity is a natural consequence of moving away from the sole use of pesticides and yet still maintaining a reasonable level of pest reduction. Any one of the methods in Table 1.1 may simply not be enough, and a combination of methods may be inevitable. Here again is a reason why more knowledge is required. Clearly one needs to know what combination of methods to employ, when to employ them, and how. Combine this with a holistic perspective regarding the pest complex and human social systems, and it is not difficult to see why IPM has been called "a very ambitious program" (Stoner, Sawyer, and Shelton, 1986). The knowledge-intensive nature of IPM has been recognized for some time and by many authors. Thorough understanding of basic agro-ecosystem dynamics is a prerequisite to achievement of directed management of pest populations. —Barfield and Stimac (1980) It is perhaps axiomatic to point out that IPM is a highly complex technology, even if the complex ecology of pest groups in an agroecosystem is understood. —Pimental (1982) A clear understanding of the interactions of the complex of factors operating in the ecosystem is fundamental to successful integrated pest and vector management. —Youdeowei and Service (1983)

The Rise and Rise of IPM

29

Fundamental to devising an IPM strategy is a sound understanding of the ecological basis of the pest problem. —Burn, Coaker, and Jepson (1987) Because IPM is characterised and defined by its conceptual framework, it is necessarily knowledge-intensive, more so than the single approach of insect control by insecticide usage ever approached— and farmers have to be knowledgeable themselves to successfully implement this concept of IPM. —Odhiambo (1990) IPM is an holistic approach which requires a detailed knowledge of local agro-ecosystems. —Malena (1994) Such an understanding of "the complex of factors operating in the ecosystem" is not easily obtainable and largely means that the pest and natural enemy population dynamics have to be well understood and continuously measured in the field (Beets, 1990). Indeed, pest management could be viewed as an "applied form of population ecology": In order to ensure that control methods are used to best advantage, it is necessary to have an understanding of the natural influences which determine the abundance and persistence of insect populations. In other words, a knowledge of the population dynamics of insects is relevant to the practice of pest management. —Geier (1966) This greater knowledge-action diversity of management almost by definition makes it more site and time specific than control (Glass, 1992). Further considerations are the type of knowledge and the source of the knowledge. Typically, this is assumed to derive from the traditional hypothetical-deductive approach common in science, which revolves around the twin towers of experimentation and reductionism (dividing a complex system into its components and experimenting with these). One often-mentioned distinguishing feature of management is that it operates over a larger spatial dimension than control. Initially, people thought in terms of controlling pests in individual fields, and the system was in effect demarked by the field boundary. With the advent of management, the system dimension typically expanded to encompass regions with a similar cropping pattern (e.g., citrus groves and cotton plantations in North America). The expansion was largely forced by the incorporation of biological control, which only makes sense over large areas, with individual farmers working in unison. After all, if 99 percent of farmers in a region apply pesticide with no thought to conserving natural enemies of the

30

The Rise and Rise of IPM

pest, then the 1 percent of farmers who do try to practice pest management will gain no benefit. Scale is an important consideration in I P M . . . Pests are mobile. A strategic approach to pest management therefore, by its very nature, implies a larger-than-field and usually a larger-than-farm approach. —Barfield and Swisher (1994)

Finally, Gabriel (1989) states that the difference between control and management can been viewed in terms of awareness of human social issues. Management is seen as an inclusion of these issues, whereas control is not. We believe that these differences between control and management can be placed into two categories. The first represents a natural flow of consequences from a desire to manage the pest population, which itself could come partly from a desire to eliminate or reduce pesticide use (Figure 1.4). This category is, in essence, an immediate and practical consequence of the adoption of the management philosophy. Once a decision has been made to manage pests, and assuming that a level of crop protection is still desired, then one practical approach may be to employ a greater diversity of control measures. For example, it is possible that pesticides could be replaced

Figure 1.4 Some Consequences of Reduced Pesticide Use and Integration with Other Crop Protection Technologies Target Need for pesticide reduction/integration

t

CONSEQUENCES

I

Action Increased reliance on other control methods (increase in diversity of actions)

Knowledge

Time/Space

Need for more knowledge as to how the increasingly diverse actions work and how best to use them

Greater dependence on adoption over a wider area and over time

The Rise and Rise of IPM

31

by a single technology such as biological control. An alternative is that the use of pesticides could become more complex and could include the formulation and adoption of thresholds and perhaps the use of a greater diversity of pesticides. Clearly, if there is an increase in diversity or complexity of control methods, then there is a need for more knowledge. Secondly, some of the technologies have to be applied over a large area in order for them to work. One example of this is the destruction of crop residue in order to kill pathogens and pests that may be harbored there. If only one farmer does this, then he or she will not benefit because the pests can simply fly in from neighboring farms. The measure has to be applied by many of the farmers in order for it to work. The necessity of farmers to work in unison may itself create difficulties of coordination. The second category of quoted distinctions between control and management is, we believe, more subjective and nebulous. Arrogance in terms of a lack of "respect for nature" has largely been associated with the use of pesticides. Although management is typically associated with "respect for nature," it can be argued that control can also demonstrate such respect. For example, there are a number of classic examples of biological control (Debach, 1974) that are not pest management in the sense employed by many, yet these have been very beneficial and environmentally benign. It is difficult to imagine how carefully implemented and successful biological control programs could have shown "disrespect for nature." Similarly, as will be discussed later, one can have control that is sensitive to human social issues and management that is not. In fact, arrogance and sensitivity to social issues can be thought of as overlaying all of crop protection, and indeed any agricultural innovation, and a precise linking to a distinction between control and management would, we believe, be unproductive and indeed retrogressive.

Diversity: Strength or Weakness? We can think of management as a further dimension in crop protection that places a greater emphasis on knowledge of the agro-ecosystem (including the human elements) and the results of actions that are used to limit pest numbers. However, it is probably fair to say that control and management represent the two extremes of a spectrum of intervention possibilities; hence the potential for confusion when one attempts to locate a particular practice such as IPM within the continuum. The axes that one can use to delineate management are varied, and four examples are given in Figure 1.5. The top end of the scales in Figure 1.5 tend toward management, and the lower end of the scales tend toward control. Even when considering the four spaces delineated by these axes, one individual's view of IPM may not agree with another's, although it is possible that their views may coincide in places. For example, some may see pesticide use as a key tool

32

The Rise and Rise of IPM

Figure t .5 Four Examples of Scales That Map Out the Areas of Crop Protection Covered by Control and Management Spatial Scale

Time Scale

Pesticide Application

Agro-ecosystem Knowledge

MANAGEMENT No pesticide Country

Decades Economic threshold

Large (pest complex, natural enemies, economics, etc.)

Region Action threshold Farm

Year

Field

Season

Insurance

Small (single pest)

CONTROL

within IPM, whereas others may see this as anathema. In between these two extreme positions are those who are willing to tolerate pesticide use for a variety of reasons, without necessarily seeing pesticides as a key element. Similar differences can occur with the other three scales in Figure 1.5, and indeed with other scales one may employ to differentiate management and control. The fact that definitions and views of IPM have been in continuous transition since the origins of the modern IPM paradigm in the 1960s has been mentioned already, and it has been said that this diversity should not be used for "denigrating the concept" (Allen and Bath, 1980). Attributed to an evolutionary process (Allen and Bath, 1980), this diversity is often portrayed as a strength rather than a weakness. However, what selection pressure has driven this evolution? Could it be related to the practicality of IPM? One can also ask whether the diversity of views about IPM is really a strength. The diversity does mean that many programs can carry the IPM label, and this is useful if one is trying to portray its popularity or, indeed, if one is writing a grant proposal. Using one or two of the definitions given earlier, it would be possible to prove that every farmer in the world is employing IPM! However, this leads to disputes between those following what they believe to be "true" IPM and those following a pale imitation. The key point is that the diversity is not a consensus arrived at through agreement among IPM scientists and practitioners, but instead represents a collection of many different perspectives. The debate over the meaning of IPM is indicative of the different agendas of people involved in IPM, which in turn reflects of the fact that IPM is a human construct, not a law of nature.

2 IPM, Pesticides, and Knowledge

Pesticides and Sustainability in IPM IPM has a curious, and often contradictory, relationship with the use of pesticides. It can be argued that the use of pesticides gave birth to the IPM philosophy as we know it today, and the conditions in which IPM has succeeded best are those in which excessive use of pesticides led to many problems, such as in the production of citrus, cotton, and rice. As will be discussed later, IPM is a reactive philosophy, not a proactive one—without the problems associated with pesticide use it is doubtful whether IPM would ever have come into being. In discussing IPM, it should be kept in mind that the concept evolved as a reaction to an over-reliance on chemical pest control. —Schulten (1989a, 1989b) The IPM concept has been popularized, especially in North America, over the past 30 years, in a sense, as a solution to the extreme dependence on the use of synthetic organic pesticides for pest control. —Edelson (1994) The IPM philosophy is usually associated with a reduction in pesticide use or even the exclusion of pesticides altogether. Indeed, some have suggested that IPM is more easily defined in terms of what it isn't (i.e., liberal use of pesticides) than what it actually is (Kremer, 1994). This association with reduced use of pesticides has typically resulted in IPM programs being judged in terms of how much they have cut pesticide application. The following remarks illustrates this. After 4 years of development and implementation of IPM strategies, Campbell Soup Company has attained and surpassed its corporate

33

34

IPM, Pesticides, and Knowledge

goal of reducing pesticide applications by 50% on crops grown for the company. —Bolkan arid Reinert (1994) When IPM methods are practised, use of conventional chemical pesticides decreases from 30 to 50 percent, depending on the commodity. For example, about 75 percent of New York cabbage growers have adopted IPM, reducing pesticide inputs by approximately 50 percent. —Koplinka-Loehr et al. (1996) IPM has also become closely associated with the current drive toward sustainable agriculture, and many articles and books calling for more sustainable agriculture typically have a section promoting IPM as the answer to pest problems. Conway and Barbier (1990), for instance, classify IPM as an agricultural technology with "a high potential sustainability." It has even been suggested that the IPM philosophy, or at least its main emphasis on reduced pesticide use, acted as a "philosophical precursor" to the emphasis on sustainable agriculture in the United States (Allen and Rajotte, 1990). The similarity between the goals of IPM and sustainable agriculture has often been noted: "It is clear that IPM and sustainable agriculture belong together. Even taken separately their goals are remarkably similar" (Frans, 1993). As a result, IPM has become a subset within the sustainability debate and is often regarded as the sustainable (i.e., no pesticide) way to crop protection. As Holl, Daily, and Ehrlich (1990) say, "IPM is a sustainable pest-control option." The meaning of the term "sustainable agriculture" has been hotly debated and can literally mean entirely contrasting ideas to different people (Frans, 1993). To some extent IPM reflects the wider debate in sustainability, although it does, in theory at least, have the advantage of being much more specific and at least tangible. A substantial part of the sustainability debate has been fueled by a desire of some to reduce the use of artificial inputs such as fertilizers, growth regulators, and pesticides in agriculture. Hence some workers emphasize the use of "natural" control technologies (especially biological control) rather than pesticides. For example, a report to the World Commission on Environment and Development states that IPM is "the most promising of the sustainable strategies for pest control" because it initially employs "an optimal combination of biological and chemical control technologies with gradual phasing out of the latter to rely on natural controls" {Food 2000, 1987; emphasis added). IPM is often seen as an alternative to pesticide use rather than as a better way to use pesticides. According to Moore (1996): "The fact that so many IPM approaches remain pesticide-based not only severely constrains their potential, but can actually pervert IPM into a vehicle for continuing dependence on pesticides in spite of proven alternatives" (emphasis added).

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35

In contrast, others have stressed a reduction in pesticide use rather than a phasing out of their use altogether. They emphasize an increase in the diversity of options, with pesticides included as part of this diversity. Fundamental to IPM is the availability of an arsenal of various pest management controls (e.g. chemical controls, cultural, biological, etc.). —Coodell (1984) Develop integrated weed, pest, and disease management systems that combine physical, chemical, biological and cultural methods, thereby minimizing the cost and amount of pesticides used and their adverse effects on the ecosystem. —Okigbo (1990); taken from a list of fifteen recommendations "toward sustainable agriculture in Africa" It must be stressed, however, that advocating IPM does not imply outright condemnation of pesticide use. Indeed, pesticides can still be used within the context of IPM, although such use demands much more careful analysis. —Lawani (1990) Some insecticide use is favourable and in many cases is an essential ingredient of IPM programmes, especially for emergency control of pest outbreaks on high value crops. —Challenges (1990) Integrated pest management (IPM) programmes seek to minimize the role of synthetic pesticides in pest control systems. —Matteson (1992) IPM will continue to rely upon pesticides to help control pests in the near future, but it will be necessary to utilize good application techniques to obtain good pest control. Quite often, a single pesticide application that is properly timed and applied can alter the pest-topredator ratio so that good biological control can be obtained, and the need for future pesticide applications can thus be reduced or eliminated. —Aselage (1994) IPM does not therefore mean complete abandonment of chemical pesticides, in fact the use of pesticides as a component of IPM is the best use of pesticides. —Kaaya (1994) Synthetic organic insecticides continue to be critical to the successful operation of pest management systems. —Larson (1996) In Bank-financed agriculture operations, pest populations are normally controlled through IPM approaches, such as biological control,

36

IPM, Pesticides, and Knowledge cultural practices and the development and use of crop varieties that are resistant or tolerant to the pest. The Bank may finance the purchase of pesticides when their use is justified under an IPM approach. —World Bank (1996); operational policy 4.09; emphasis added

Decisionmaking is a key aspect of IPM (Binns and Nyrop, 1992; Norton and Mumford, 1993), and if one assumes that management, in the sense of a continuous decision-action process, is really only possible with an intervention technology that allows an instantaneous reduction when the pest population reaches a target level, then pesticides may provide the best way of achieving this. Pesticides are: • easily stored for long periods in a compact form • easily applied at very short notice (provided the machinery is available and the weather conditions are suitable) • fast-acting and efficient Given these properties, pesticides' exclusion from IPM may appear at first to be almost paradoxical—surely they are the ideal management tools! This point has not been lost on the pesticide industry, and this may explain why there has been little resistance to IPM within this quarter. Indeed, it is interesting to note that the enthusiasm of the pesticide industry for IPM that includes a pesticide component has been put down by critics as a sort of "rearguard action" (Haila and Levins, 1992). It is argued that IPM represents a "much enlarged bag of tricks," which the pesticide industry can sell to farmers. This bag contains pesticides, monitoring technologies, and constancy services (Haila and Levins, 1992). The New York State Integrated Pest Management Program 1996 Annual Report argues that pesticide reductions are not necessarily bad for the pesticide industry: "Pesticide reductions represent shifts in the ways farmers do business. The only way farmers can reduce pesticide use and maintain quality is to manage pests with new information and new technology—and they buy a lot of those services . . . And don't forget: a 'green' image is beneficial to a company" (Koplinka-Loehr et al., 1996). Interestingly, the link between pesticides and IPM has also persisted in situations in which environmental problems with pesticide use have not yet become apparent, for a variety of reasons. In Africa, for example, there has been relatively little use of pesticides, yet IPM has traditionally been promoted in terms of its more conservative use of pesticides. As Kremer (1994) has pointed out, this has led to a reduction in breadth of crop protection options, with pesticides not considered at all. For those that advocate a wiser use of pesticides as part of IPM (or indeed IPC), the cornerstone of the approach is the development and use of economic thresholds (ET) (Stern, 1973). Interestingly, unlike IPM itself, the concept of the economic threshold has remained relatively consistent

IPM, Pesticides, and Knowledge

37

over time and among many different writers. There have been problems with workers using different terms to describe the same thing, but the key point is that the underlying ideas have remained very consistent (Pedigo, Hutchins, and Higley, 1986). The following definition of ET is one of the first and most famous, and its essential elements have been repeated many times by others (see, for example, Malham, 1995): The density at which control measures should be determined to prevent an increasing pest population from reaching the economic injury level. —Stern et al. (1959) "Economic injury" level (EIL, sometimes called the "damage threshold") being "the lowest population density that will cause economic damage" and "economic damage" being "the amount of injury which will justify the cost of artificial control measures" (Stern et al., 1959). The importance of thresholds within IPM (and IPC) has been stressed by a number of authors: The determination of a pest density capable of causing economic damage as opposed to the mere presence of the pest in agricultural crops and forests is an essential prerequisite to the development of sophisticated pest-control programs (integrated pest control or pest management). —Stern (1973) The concept of the economic threshold is the basis of the modern theory of integrated pest management. —Plant (1986) The economic threshold . . . is the central concept associated with adaptive/responsive pest management. —Mumford and Norton (1987) The base of modern integrated pest management (IPM) is the economic thresholds of harmfulness. —Tanski, 1988; quoted in Tshernyshev (1995) The concept of the treatment threshold is a key element of IPM systems. —Zalom et al. (1992) The use of economic thresholds is fundamental to the practice of IPM. Use of recommended economic thresholds may indicate the adoption of IPM. —Merchant and Teetes (1994) A major tenet of IPM is the concept that there is a threshold for pests prior to onset of economically significant loss. —Edelson (1994)

38

IPM, Pesticides, and Knowledge

Figure 2.1 The Economic Injury Concept loss < cost of control stimulation

compensation

crop yield

biological injury level (reduction in yield is apparent)

pest density

crop fails

Source: Adapted from H. F. van Emden. (1974). Pest Control and Its Ecology. London: Edward Arnold. Note: A certain level of crop loss is economically acceptable if the value of what is lost is less than the cost of control. However, as there is typically a time lag between when the pest population is known to be approaching the EIL and when action to reduce the population can be brought into play, control is typically applied between the BIL and the EIL.

The ET is not just a convenient number; it embodies a shift to tolerating some pests in the field, provided they are not economically damaging. Action is not considered until the pest population approaches the level at which economic injury will occur (Figure 2.1). The pest population is checked on a regular basis, and if it reaches the economic threshold then pesticide is applied. The ET is set below the EIL in order to allow for the fact that the pest density is increasing (i.e., it allows for a time-lag effect). The position opposite to the use of thresholds is the "insurance" application of pesticide, in which application occurs whether the pest is likely to become damaging or not (Figure 2.2). In a situation in which a pest may not always reach the EIL, then clearly the use of a threshold should help to limit the number of pesticide applications and thereby reduce their economic and environmental cost. Note the emphasis on economic injury and not biological injury when determining thresholds for pesticide application. The biological injury level (BIL) is reached when a reduction in yield starts to occur, but the cost of control may be greater than the value of the reduction in yield. This figure is more or less constant for any given crop variety and pest complex. In contrast, the precise value of the ET will depend upon the EIL, which in turn will depend upon four factors (Pedigo, Hutchins, and Higley, 1986): 1. Market value of the crop 2. Cost of control

IPM, Pesticides, and Knowledge

39

Figure 2.2 Economic Thresholds in IPM A. Insurance application of pesticides

E I L (constant)

pest density 1

1

1

1

1

1

1

Time Note: Pesticide applied irrespective of whether the pest population will likely reach the EIL. B. Pesticide applied when pest population reaches an economic threshold (ET)

pest density

T"

1

E I L (constant) J

ET

Time

Note: Pest population peak often does not warrant pesticide application.

Notes: EIL - economic injury level (Cost of control = value of crop lost). Assumed to be constant in these examples, but in practice is likely to vary. Arrows represent an application of pesticide.

40

IPM, Pesticides, and Knowledge

3. Injury per insect density (injury/insect X number of insects) 4. Loss in crop value per insect injury Clearly the first two depend on the economic climate, a background that can change dramatically from month to month (Pedigo, Hutchins, and Higley, 1986). In the purest sense, therefore, economic thresholds should be very flexible entities that are constantly updated to reflect changes in factors 1 and 2 listed previously (Stern et al., 1959; Walker, 1983b; Mumford and Norton, 1984; Carlson and Headley, 1987; Beets, 1990; Mann and Wratten, 1991). An additional complication is the determination of factors 3 and 4, which is in practice very difficult, especially when complexes of different pests are considered (Pedigo, Hutchins, and Higley, 1986). Unfortunately, most crops suffer from a number of pests and diseases that cause a loss of crop, and ideally the effects of all of these need to be integrated in determining the true value of the EIL (and hence economic threshold) for any one component of this complex. There are different types of ET depending upon their level of flexibility and how they have been determined. Poston, Pedigo, and Welch (1983) use the terminology expressed in Table 2.1 to describe the distinctions

Table 2.1

Types of Thresholds Employed in Crop Protection

Type of Threshold

Description

Nominal (e.g., subjective ET)

Based on field experience and logic.

Simple (e.g., subjective ET)

Calculated from crude quantification of the "average" pesthost relationship in terms of pest damage potential, crop market value, control costs, and potential crop yield.

Values remain static.

Generally inflexible to change over time. Comprehensive (e.g., objective ET)

Based on interdisciplinary research incorporating the total production system on a given farm and including factors such as multiple pests and crop stress effects. Very flexible to change over time. Fixed ET: set at a fixed percentage of the EIL. Descriptive ET: includes projections of pest population growth based on simulation models. Dichotomous ET: based on samples taken over time and classifying the population as economic or noneconomic as a result of analyzing the sample data.

Source: Based on F. L. Poston, L. P. Pedigo, and S. M. Welch. (1983). Economic injury levels: Reality and practicality. Bulletin of the Entomological Society of America 29: 49-53; L. P. Pedigo. (1996). Economic thresholds and economic injury levels. World Wide Web site: http://www.ent.agri.umn.edu/academics/classes/ipm/chapters/pedigo.htm.

IPM, Pesticides, and Knowledge

41

between different types of threshold. At one end of the scale are the subjective ETs (nominal and simple thresholds), which are more or less fixed figures representing a sort of average density at which the cost of control is warranted (see Figure 2.3). They are typically derived from experience and "guesstimates" rather than solid empirical data. At the other end of the scale are the objective ETs (comprehensive thresholds), which are based on calculated EILs and are completely flexible as a result. These represent the "true" ETs often described in the IPM literature. Pedigo (1996) describes three different types of objective ET that depend essentially upon the degree of knowledge one has about the future trend of the pest population. The simplest form of objective ET is a simple proportion of the EIL (e.g., 75 percent), and one takes action once this value has been exceeded whether or not the population is likely to go on to reach the EIL (the assumption is that it will). Other forms of objective ETs include estimations of whether the pest population will reach the EIL (i.e., they include an allowance for population growth) and can be quite sophisticated. In practice, however, it is the subjective ETs that predominate (Pedigo, 1996). There is some further confusion because the terms "action threshold" and "control threshold" appear quite commonly in the literature, and some use them to mean essentially the same thing as the economic threshold (Stern, 1973; Walker, 1983b; Pedigo, Hutchins, and Higley, 1986). In this book we use

Time Notes: EIL = economic injury level; ET = economic threshold (the point at which an action is initiated to prevent the popoulation density from reaching the EIL): BIL = biological injury level (the pest density that reduces yield) Althought the relative positions of the EIL, ET, and BIL are generally as shown in the graph, the magnitude of the difference between them will vary greatly with crops, economic environment, etc. The position of an action threshold is relatively fixed (i.e., stable over time) and typically lies between the BIL and the ET.

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IPM, Pesticides, and Knowledge

the term ET to represent the true or objective ET of Pedigo (1996), and "action threshold" will be used to cover both the nominal (subjective ET) and simple thresholds of Poston, Pedigo, and Welch (1983). The application of thresholds is subject to a number of difficulties, and these have been summarized by Zadoks (1985, 1987). Variability in treatment costs and crop prices are only two of these. It should also be noted that the use of targets in this way, although central to management, is not confined to IPC or IPM. Targets (biological, action, and economic thresholds) can be a part of a single control program, such as the use of pesticides. Indeed, there has been some overlap between IPM and simply a more responsible use of pesticide as in IPC (so-called pesticide management). Cunfer (1994), for example, states that "a criticism of many IPM programs is that they are primarily pesticide management programs." Brunner (1994) has also identified this in relation to the very agro-ecosystem that largely spawned IPM, and from which many of the classic case studies for textbooks are still taken—fruit tree crops. IPM in orchards has, to a great extent, meant "integrated pesticide management." While some secondary pests are controlled by natural enemies, tree fruit remains a cropping system where pesticides are the dominant control for key pests. —Brunner (1994) Linkage of IPM to pesticide management is by no means a recent criticism. Brader (1979), for example, is also critical of the "pesticide management" nature of some "IPM" programs (Brader employs the FAO usage of IPC to mean IPM): IPC programs are sometimes erroneously thought to be only modified spray programs, the so-called intelligent application of pesticides. This is incorrect, as it does not recognize the fact that natural mortality is the most important and cheapest element in avoiding pest outbreaks. Consequently, crop protection activities will have to be based in the first place on "natural manipulatable mechanisms." —Brader (1979) Brader goes on to criticize a specific "IPM" example from China, "in which insecticides were carefully chosen and applied to maximise their action on the target organisms and to minimise their impact on non-target species and on human and animal health. The chief aim is to use insecticides as significant parts of multifactored pest control programs to cope with pest outbreaks" (National Academy of Sciences, quoted in Brader, 1979). Brader attacks this position as paying "lip service" to IPM (insecticides are still viewed as "significant parts" of pest control), but this

IPM, Pesticides, and Knowledge

43

description sounds very close to what many believe to be IPM and, indeed, has been and currently is practiced under the label of IPM. In addition, Barfield and O'Neil (1984) point out that many so-called IPM programs have the following characteristics: • System boundaries tend to end at the field level rather than the whole agro-ecosystem • Mortality due to natural enemies and other factors is poorly (if at all) understood • Pests are considered one at a time, with no attempt to view them in an integrated sense • Thresholds are static (i.e., action thresholds) as opposed to true economic thresholds • Pest population monitoring is often absent or imprecise This set of characteristics equates much more closely to control than management (as set out in Chapter 1), and it is easy to understand why some have been critical of the use of the term "IPM" to cover such programs. Barfield and Swisher (1994), among others, have analyzed this dichotomy within IPM further, and have defined two "schools of thought" within the broad church of IPM. 1. Those who see IPM as essentially a more responsible approach to the use of pesticides (tactical IPM) 2. Those who emphasize the need for a thorough understanding of the agro-ecosystem before component technologies are applied (strategic IPM) Within this perspective, "tactical" IPM (pesticide management, supervised pest control; "watered-down" IPM [Brader, 1988]; "rational pest management" [Tait, 1987]) could be the application of a pesticide in line with an economic or action threshold. Also included here could be some simple measures to avoid killing the natural enemies of the pest or minimize this mortality as far as possible. The timing of sprays could be altered, areas in the field could be left unsprayed, or the farmer could avoid spraying near hedgerows (where many of the natural enemies reside). The distinction between this version of IPM, IPC, and "responsible" pest control with pesticides can be rather vague. We argue that they are in essence the same thing, and this is why there is some confusion between the terms, especially as the majority of IPM practitioners and researchers are probably working within tactical IPM (Barfield and Swisher, 1994). The rhetoric may well stress all of the IPM ideals, including the need for extensive ecological knowledge such as pest-natural enemy population dynamics and interactions, but in practice what may occur is "pesticide management"

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IPM, Pesticides, and Knowledge

based on quite crude action thresholds. Indeed, the characteristics of tactical IPM make it more control than management, and even the use of the term "IPM" may be a misnomer. The second school of thought equates more exactly with the spirit of IPM as defined (but not necessarily practiced) by many (the "real" IPM of Brader, 1988). "Strategic" IPM is based on a thorough and detailed knowledge of the agro-ecosystem and its components and interactions, and only when this has been obtained is there an attempt to introduce the relevant technologies for IPM to work (Barfield and O'Neil, 1984). Barfield and Swisher (1994) claim that the "strategic" IPM practitioners are in a minority, and indeed were regarded as the "radical fringe" of IPM in the 1970s. We would agree with Barfield and Swisher (1994) when they say: "The original intent of IPM has never been met. The menu of control/tactical options has grown enormously since World War II, but the ecological strategists capable of deliberately combining compatible tactics into rational strategies with robust success remain in the wings and are not yet centre stage" (Barfield and Swisher, 1994; emphasis in the original). It can be argued that strategic IPM is true IPM in the sense that it is the version that is often defined and dreamed of, but tactical IPM (IPC or pesticide management, if preferred) has become the practiced form largely because of the complexity of strategic IPM. In others words, strategic IPM (management) is the ideal and tactical IPM (control) is a relatively weak expression of the ideal. However, although tactical IPM is the form commonly practiced, it is the strategic form that is usually stressed in the rhetoric and indeed probably forms the basis of much IPM research. Whether pesticides still fit into strategic IPM is debatable, but the key point is that their use is based on extensive ecological knowledge as opposed to relatively simple thresholds. In other words, if pesticides are used they become a precision tool within a program of agro-ecosystem management—a rapier rather than a refined blunderbuss, as in tactical IPM. In between the two extremes of tactical and strategic IPM is a whole continuum of approaches, and any attempt to classify all IPM programs into one or the other group is rather simplistic. However, the key point we wish to make is that much of the rhetoric is about strategic IPM, and this end of the spectrum holds a strong attractive force. Indeed it has been suggested that the center of "IPM gravity" appears to be moving toward the strategic end of the spectrum, at least in the United States, following commitments from the Clinton administration in 1993 to sustainable agriculture. According to Moore (1996), "progress is being made in re-establishing ecological dynamics as the foundation of IPM." Recently there has been a move toward defining a new type of pest management, called Ecological Pest Management (EPM). The fundamental difference between the two appears to reside in their tolerance for pesticide use.

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Towards use of pesticides, IPM takes a liberal view: "gains must be greater than losses." It represents understandable consensus among interests of pesticide industry, conventional agriculture and applied science. In EPM, the cumulated knowledge of ecological side-effects of pesticide use is enough for taking a more strict view. —Helenius (1995) The difference is also apparent in terms of the timing and intensity of the decisionmaking process (Tshernyshev, 1995). In EPM the aim is to prevent pest populations from attaining damaging levels at a very early stage by ensuring an adequate balance of natural enemies in the system. Pest populations are monitored very carefully, and if the population appears to be slipping away from equilibrium, then natural enemies are released, or "soft pesticides" (i.e., those based on microbial agents such as viruses, bacteria, or fungi) are used to check the population. To us, the difference between EPM and strategic IPM is largely one of emphasis rather than character, and we would argue that at its heart EPM is really no different from strategic IPM without pesticides. The emphasis on not using pesticides does distinguish EPM from tactical IPM, although even here there are many similarities. Both still require monitoring of the pest population, ideally alongside a monitoring of the natural enemies, and both emphasize action when a certain point is reached. What that point is called and when it is reached, to us, are largely matters of emphasis. EPM may call for the use of biological agents and soft pesticides, but so does all of the IPM family and, indeed, so can integrated and single-control technologies. These components are not unique to EPM, and neither is the need for intensive population monitoring. As has already been stressed, many authors have suggested a need to reduce pesticide application as part of IPM programs, and this is seen as a central element of the IPM philosophy. We would therefore regard EPM as essentially the same thing as strategic IPM.

Sampling as Part of IPM As mentioned above, real IPM should be all about managing pest populations below certain target levels, be they economic or action thresholds. Checking whether a pest population has reached a target requires some degree of monitoring in the field (sometimes called scouting) or perhaps a prediction based on the use of computer simulation models. The essence of integrated pest control is the monitoring and prediction of pest outbreaks. —Zelazny, Chiarappa, and Kenmore (1985)

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The successful use of economic thresholds by pest management decision makers depends on the availability of reliable and practical methods for estimating insect densities. —Merchant and Teetes (1992) Accurately estimating insect pest abundance by sampling is critical for the successful application of economic threshold information. —Merchant and Teetes (1994) Without question, pest population assessment and decision making are among the most basic elements in any integrated pest management (IPM) program. In fact, these activities characterize state of the art approaches in pest technology and differentiate IPM from other activities. —Pedigo (1996) Scouting, often referred to as monitoring or surveying of pests, is essential in an IPM program. —Integrated Pest Management (1996) Monitoring the level of a pest population and its natural enemies in the field may sound relatively easy, but in practice it can be quite difficult (Stern, 1973). There is much literature regarding appropriate sampling and forecasting techniques in IPM, and excellent summaries and examples have been provided by a number of workers in this field (Thompson, 1983; Walker, 1983a, 1987; Ives and Moon, 1987; Cammell and Way, 1987; Binns and Nyrop, 1992). However, even in 1996 the "inability to make cost effective and accurate population estimates" is still put forward as a major limitation in the use of the EIL concept (Pedigo, 1996). The complexity has been illustrated by Brunner (1994), even for a relatively simple agro-ecosystem (fruit tree crops) in one of the most developed countries, the United States: "The ability to accurately assess the density of pests and their natural enemies is the most basic element of any IPM program, yet it remains one of the greatest challenges to fruit IPM." Sampling methods can be direct (the pests themselves are assessed) or indirect (damage or some other indicator is used). Although thresholds are usually based upon number of pests found in a sample, the EIL concept is really based on the level of crop injury, which itself is related to the number of pests and the level of damage inflicted by a single pest over its lifetime (the "injury equivalent"). An added complication is that a single sample may not be enough to predict whether a pest population will eventually reach the EIL. This can partly be solved by taking a number of samples and estimating population growth rate, but this adds more complexity. The "descriptive" and "dichotomous" ETs of Pedigo (1996) listed in Table 2.1 attempt to include an estimation of population growth, but there can be unforeseen changes after the sampling has taken place: "Even detailed monitoring to a standard protocol is unlikely to identify all problems

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correctly. There is an unescapable contradiction between the advantages of early monitoring which allows action to be taken, and the unexpected changes that may occur after the assessment" (Greig-Smith and Griffin 1992). The problem is how to obtain a reasonable estimation of pest (or natural enemy) density (numbers/area) combined with a reasonable assessment as to whether the pest will eventually reach the EIL, and all with a reasonable expenditure on time and equipment. Just what is reasonable depends upon the context and may be very different for a professional researcher and for a farmer. This can be a complex issue, even for the professional scientist. As we mentioned earlier, the use of thresholds are by no means unique to IPM. One can argue that management's higher demand for information on pest and natural enemy population densities distinguishes it from control. Clearly, if the population of more than one species is being determined, then the complexity of the sampling program increases, if for no other reason than the fact that the practitioner has to identify more than one species. In reality the sampling program may have to be quite different for different species. As one of the originators of the economic threshold concept has noted: The biology and ecology of arthropods, and their time and method of attack o n host plants, are so varied that there is no standard sampling technique for all species . . . A s a general precaution, more man-hours and funds have been wasted on inadequate and poorly designed sampling techniques than any other phase of population study. —Stern (1973)

Given the complexity at play here, there is a clear need for some level of simplification in order to allow farmers to sample pests. The complexity can be sidestepped, especially in developed countries, by the farmer who employs an adviser or consultant, but of course this is an additional cost that has to be covered by savings made on pesticide application. M o n i t o r i n g costs can be built into the calculations of gross margins and can be justified if they are exceeded by average savings in the costs of the chemicals and their application. Market forces w o u l d determine the acceptance of supervised crop protection, a n d the charges for monitoring, after a few years' experience. -Greig-Smith and Griffin (1992)

However, even here many farmers may be unwilling to pay for such a service. As Greig-Smith and Griffin point out for the UK: M a n y farmers would prefer to carry out their o w n monitoring or replace monitoring with a less structured judgement. In that case, success depends on whether monitoring procedures and the decision criteria

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that follow from them are easily understood, and on how closely informed local judgement approximates to more accurate measurements. Thus "do it yourself" monitoring can reduce costs substantially, but is likely to result in more reliance on the extra margin of safety afforded by insurance applications, particularly if confidence is damaged by occasional failures to anticipate problems. -Greig-Smith

& Griffin (1992)

A problem arises when scientists are loathe to compromise technical accuracy for practicality. After all, it may be argued that there is little point in simplifying a sampling program to the extent that it becomes totally unreliable. Clearly, there has to be a careful compromise. Some progress has been made in this area, and simpler and quicker sampling methods have been developed, although it has to be said that there is a strong need for further progress. An excellent example of the use of a simpler sampling method is provided by Koplinka-Loehr et al. (1996): "In 1985 apple mite sampling consisted of counting mites per leaf—a technique that required almost 25 minutes per 5-acre block. Today, a presence/absence method requires only 12 minutes and is just as accurate." To a large extent, the accuracy and complexity of the sampling program required is inextricably linked to where one wishes to locate the program along the "tactical-strategic" IPM axis. At the tactical end of the scale (control), the requirements will be far less than at the strategic (management) extreme. Given the attraction, at least to scientists, of the strategic end of the axis, there is a danger that unless farmers are included in the discussion this pull will leave them behind and create monitoring regimes that cannot be used. As Smith (1983) has pointed out in relation to subsistence farmers: "Sophisticated monitoring techniques are unrealistic for subsistence agriculture and it is unlikely that subsistence farmers will monitor pest populations on their own farms."

Knowledge and IPM The previous sections have highlighted some of the difficulties in trying to describe the evolution of crop protection. Although the concept of integrating crop protection technologies is easy to grasp, the meaning of "management" is much more difficult. The fact that scientists introduced a new term does signify a deep transition in their view of crop protection, even if "management" is employed only as a label to describe this transition—but a transition from what to what? Beyond a general thrust that can be condensed from the different views in Chapter 1 that management represents a sort of "green" crop protection derived from substantial ecological knowledge, the picture is rather fuzzy. The substantive element of this for many is the ultimate removal of pesticides from crop protection, although

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others are willing to settle for a minimizing of pesticide problems. However, what if pesticides do not already form part of the crop protection strategy of farmers, as is the situation in many tropical agro-ecosystems? Are they already practicing pest management? If so, why does it need to be introduced as part of development programs? Herein lies, we believe, the central conundrum of pest management—it was born out of environmental adversity and is still mainly described in those terms, yet it has become much more than that. An evolution accelerated by environmental concerns has led to an extreme desire to apply the scientific method to the design or modification of agro-ecosystems, so as to limit pest populations in ways that are not environmentally damaging (humans and their social systems form part of the environment, and are not external to it). Pest management has become almost a cause célèbre of applied ecology, and, indeed, it could be argued that the dominance of IPM has been greatly helped by its promise of making crop protection more "scientific." Ecology has been regarded as the least exact of biological sciences, and its practitioners have been caught in the reductionist drive that has pervaded biology since the 1950s (Capra, 1983). Natural sciences such as ecology have often been seen as inferior to the physical sciences, largely because they have historically employed a Baconian (inductive) approach rather than the hypothetical-deductive approach favored by physics and chemistry (see Figure 2.4). There has been a move to employ the hypothetical-deductive approach more widely in ecology, often in conjunction with reductionism—reducing a complex system into its components and studying their interaction (Golley, 1993). The ultimate goal is to understand the system in terms of the interaction of its parts, just as a machine can be understood by the ways in which its parts interact. Indeed, this approach is often termed "mechanistic" because it views an ecosystem as a complex machine. However, in ecology as a whole this move has had limited success, largely because of system complexity, and some have argued that the use of hypothetical-deductive thinking has hindered the effectiveness of ecologists in solving environmental problems (Golley, 1993).

Figure 2.4 The Inductive and Deductive Approaches to Science Baconian (inductive) approach collection of data (observation)

•

inferences

Hypothetical (deductive) approach hypothesis

•

experiment

•

data

• h y p o t h e s i s correct? (yes/no)

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As agricultural systems are generally simpler (i.e., fewer species and therefore fewer interactions) than their natural counterparts, they present an environment where reductionism would have the best chance of progress. In this context, IPM could almost be regarded as a cause célèbre within crop protection because it would allow the pursuit of mechanistic ecology while holding much promise on the environmental front. It is interesting to note that IPM evolved within some of the simplest and most stable agro-ecosystems: monoculture plantations of tree crops and cotton in North America. Dare it be said that the scientists' drive for strategic IPM has also been fueled in part by such a need to develop a mechanistic approach to crop protection (see Figure 2.5)? A good example of the desire to incorporate ecological concepts more fully within IPM is provided by Kogan (1986). This book, Ecological Theory and Integration Pest Management Practice, comprises a number of papers presented at a symposium in 1984 that was designed to offer a forum within which "basic and applied ecologists could discuss various aspects of the theoretical foundations of IPM." Yet the drive to base crop protection on "extensive" ecological knowledge pervades most of the IPM literature. A good example is the distinction made by Barfield and Swisher (1994) between what they term "tactical IPM" and "strategic IPM." The

Figure 2.5 The Proposed Two Pressures in the Selection of IPM as the Dominant Paradigm in Crop Protection IPM

Combining Pesticides with Other Forms of Control

Application to Crop Protection

A Desire to reduce pesticide use

Mechanistic approach to crop protection

Various Problems (Resistance, Damage to Nontarget Organisms)

Use of Ecological Concepts/Principals JL

Extensive Pesticide Use

Agro-ecosystem Complexity

ENVIRONMENTAL PRESSURE

MECHANISTIC PRESSURE

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former is simply IPC (or pesticide management), whereas the latter is true IPM with the basic premise that a "thorough understanding of pest and crop ecology" is necessary for its implementation. Variants of the phrase "thorough understanding of pest and crop ecology" are repeated time and time again, but agro-ecosystems, even those based on monocultures, are complex, and obtaining the basic ecological knowledge for a strategic IPM program may not be easy. This may be another reason why many so-called IPM programs have concentrated on making relatively minor alterations to the practice of pesticide use. Given that real IPM is knowledge hungry, how much knowledge do we need and where is it going to come from? The first part of this question has been much more difficult to answer than the second, and indeed one doubts whether there is an answer at all. The complexity of agro-ecosystems has, of course, been recognized for a long time, as have the limitations of our ability to comprehend all of their components and interactions. Clearly there has to be a compromise between knowing everything and knowing enough, but where is the line drawn, and can we know where to draw the line in advance of a research program? The source of the knowledge required for IPM is somewhat easier to address. Pimbert (1991) has produced an elegant summary of the "stocks of knowledge," which can be employed within an IPM program. We will cover two of them here: 1. Knowledge derived from science and technology 2. Indigenous knowledge of agricultural systems, pest life histories, and so on The traditional view of IPM scientists is that necessary knowledge has to be derived via the scientific method (typically via reductionism and the deductive-hypothetical approach). Universities and research stations are the obvious locations from which this knowledge is generated, although, as Van Huis, Meerman, and Takken (1990) have pointed out: "There is a tendency in development cooperation to carry out research activities in locations where the highest quality can be obtained, for example in institutes in developed countries or in the International Agricultural Research Centres." Typically, scientists and technicians at universities and research stations have derived the ecological knowledge required for IPM programs and the technologies that are to be employed in such programs. This knowledge is then transferred to the location where the IPM program is to be implemented. Clearly this could produce dependency and also generate approaches that are not sensitive to the local social and economic environment. The solution has typically been to call for collaborative research and a longer time span for funding such research (Van Huis, Meerman, and Takken, 1990).

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Much is sometimes made of the need to incorporate indigenous knowledge (IK), also called local knowledge (LK), into agricultural development (Blaikie et al., 1996). A vast literature has grown up around IK and so-called informal research and development, and an excellent summary related to agricultural IK is provided by Richards (1985), as well as others. Experience with farming systems in developing countries shows that local knowledge is far more extensive and subtle than outside experts have been led to believe. —Van Huis, Meerman, and Takken (1990) Innovative research has found that even illiterate farmers may possess extensive and detailed indigenous technical knowledge. —Malena (1994) The relevance of IK to IPM has been noted by many, and it has been suggested that the IK possessed by men and women may be different and both may need to be tapped when developing an IPM program (Malena, 1994). Traditional knowledge systems are based largely on observation, often observation over a long period of time. This kind of knowledge could play an important role in developing viable IPM strategies for tropical production systems. —Barfield and Swisher (1994) Indigenous technical knowledge and practices have proved a rich source of information in the development of IPM technologies. —Malena (1994) The dual requirement of generating relevant knowledge for IPM and ensuring that the proposed interventions take on broad socioeconomic issues has helped place much emphasis on IK as part of IPM (Altieri, 1993). However, although IK is often derived through approaches that are similar to those that scientists employ (although far less formal), the information collected may not necessarily be relevant for IPM. For example, although farmers will have much information about traditional methods of crop protection (Altieri, 1993), they may not have much knowledge of pest and natural enemy population dynamics and ecology (for some good examples of when they do, see Richards, 1985, pp. 148-149; Altieri, 1993). Therefore, IK may not be a substitute for basic ecological research generated by scientists, but there can be a degree of complementarity and indeed interaction between the two (Pimbert, 1991). The complex relationships between different stocks of knowledge and how they are influenced by their social context has been the subject of much discussion (see, for

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example, Long and Long, 1992) and for the sake of brevity will not be covered here. It should also be noted that although IPM is relatively knowledge hungry compared to other approaches to crop protection, it does not have a monopoly on IK. Farmers' knowledge could, and indeed should, be an input into any approach to crop protection, even if it is based on the sole use of a pesticide. IPM has only recently conceded a need to include IK— for much of its history it has been reliant on externally derived knowledge originating from scientific research.

Extension and IPM Once a particular IPM program has been designed, even if only in a broad sense, then farmers have to gain an awareness of what action needs to take place in order for it to be put into practice. As mentioned earlier, the traditional approach has been for scientists to develop the program and for an extension service, typically consisting of government employees, to carry the package to the farmers. This division of responsibility has itself led to problems, because research tends to have greater prestige than extension and hence attracts better salaries and conditions. Scarce funds will, therefore, often be preferentially directed into research at the expense of extension, and some have called for this to be reversed (Goodell, 1984; Holl, Daily, and Ehrlich, 1990). Nevertheless, as will be discussed in Chapter 5, it is common practice to blame inadequacies in extension for poor adoption of IPM (for example, Holl, Daily, and Ehrlich, 1990; Bigler, Forrer, and Fried, 1992). Agricultural extension is a vast topic, and a book such as this can only hope to cover some of the basic issues with reference to IPM. A general discussion of agricultural extension is provided by van den Ban and Hawkins (1988); for a more in-depth analysis of the extension techniques for IPM, see Garforth (1993). Extension systems are very diverse. Not only does each country vary in terms of its particular organization of extension, but even within a country there may be many different types of extension service—government, nongovernment, and private enterprise. Furthermore, as extension systems change spatially and temporally, dependent on local and national factors, certain aspects of different types of extension system, and hybrids of these, may be functioning at the same time in different locations (Garforth, 1993). In spite of this diversity there are essentially three models of extension that are commonly employed in developing countries: 1. Transfer of technology (TOT) 2. Farming systems research 3. Farmer first research

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Knowledge

Figure 2.6 The Training and Visit System (T&V) of Agricultural Extension RESEARCH

I t I

EXTENSION MESSAGE FOR THE MONTH (created by subject matter specialists)

DIVISIONAL AGRICULTURAL OFFICERS (DAO) (responsible for a group of zonal supervisors)

ZONAL SUPERVISORS (ZS) (responsible for a group of extension agents)

• EXTENSION AGENTS (EA) (responsible for a number of villages)

t

CONTACT FARMERS (CF) (each village has at least one contact farmer)

I

FARMERS Note: The extension message is created centrally and passed down the administrative hierarchy. Although feedback from fanners to the top of the hierarchy and beyond is not precluded, in practice it tends to be minimal and the emphasis instead is upon a one-way flow of information and recommendations. The exact structure of the hierarchy, number of people involved in the various layers, and titles can vary greatly between countries and even localities within countries.

The TOT model can essentially be associated with a linear approach to technology transfer: research institutes in the developed world to research institutes in developing countries to extension services to extension officers to farmers. Farmers who adopt the technology are viewed as progressive, and nonadoption is put down to poor farming practices, intransigence, or inflexibility. Although this approach may now seem absurd in relation to assisting resource-poor farmers in developing countries, it grew

IPM, Pesticides, and Knowledge 55 Figure 2.7 Comparison of Transfer of Technology (TOT) and Farming Systems Research (FSR) Approaches to Agricultural Extension A. TOT model

B. FSR model

Minimal feedback from farmers to research. Research and extension are separate services, often run by separate government agencies.

Distinction between research and extension becomes blurred, and farmers play an integral part in the process.

RESEARCHER

EXTENSION SERVICE

FARMER-

• RESEARCH/EXTENSION

• FARMER

logically out of industrialized agricultural systems. If, as in the case of U.S. and UK farming sectors, there were rich farmers seeking to find solutions to their problems through scientific inquiry, and it so happens that these groups and individuals had political power (some in government), then it is no surprise that the direction of agricultural research conducted in a TOT manner worked to meet their needs—after all, they were the instigators of the research as well as its beneficiaries. However, when this research is taken out of the context of industrial agriculture and applied to developing countries, often it has not been successful. This approach to diffusing technological innovations in developing countries was at its height in the 1950s and 1960s, and although still in existence in some regions today, has largely been abandoned as impractical and unproductive. Although the TOT model is now out of favor, one of the most commonly employed systems of extension in the past twenty years, the Training and Visit (T&V) system, is largely based on the TOT approach (Benor and Baxter, 1984). T&V was first introduced in the 1970s by the World Bank in India, Turkey, Burma, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, and billions of U.S. dollars have been invested in the system. The basic assumptions are that: 1. Much more technology already exists than is adopted by farmers 2. Inefficiencies in the extension delivery system account for much of the lack of adoption (Benor and Baxtor, 1984) The T&V system has a hierarchical organization (Figure 2.6), within which senior extension workers train field extension workers, who then

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take research findings out into the field, demonstrate them to villages and farmers, and train local farmers in the new methods. It is primarily designed to ensure that information flows down from researcher to farmer rather than the reverse. It also fails to take into account the farmers' immediate concerns or needs in relation to the type of technology required or any broader sociological or economic parameters. This is a major weakness, because, for example, it is pointless setting an economic threshold for an IPM program when the local conditions vary enoromously and the economy is unstable. Although a level of feedback from farmers is built into the system, in practice this is often minimized in favor of the topdown flow. Therefore, in practice T&V is often regarded as essentially still the classic TOT extension model, designed to facilitate information flow in only one direction (Figure 2.7a). The T&V system is still commonly employed throughout the world, although there are now moves to supplant it with other approaches such as farming systems research (FSR). Some have even called the T&V system "tragic and vain" (Barfield and Swisher, 1994). Despite these misgivings there are still certain conditions under which T&V worked well. Ellis (1992) points out that T&V was a useful system for introducing the higher-yield varieties of wheat and rice and associated input packages into developing country agriculture, in the period often referred to as the "Green Revolution." As the case studies in Chapter 4 will point out, this can be attributed to the relative simplicity of the cropping systems, whereby a uniformity of environment was matched by a uniformity of technology. However, the system was a failure in highly diverse ecological systems with resource-poor farmers (Chambers and Jiggins, 1986). Farming systems research (FSR) takes a broader ecological and sociological perspective than T&V and is often regarded, rightly or wrongly, as its successor. It originated in South American development projects in the mid-1970s and has now been adopted by many development agencies. FSR attempts to arrive at suggestions for farmers by incorporating IK as well as external knowledge. The farmers are not treated as mere recipients of knowledge, as they tend to be in T&V, but as partners in the process (Figure 2.7), and the distinction between research and extension can become blurred. However, FSR has been criticized for still tending to be research-centered rather than recipient-centered. Information may be gleaned from local inhabitants, but more often than not this is fed into an already established research agenda. As Barfield and Swisher (1994) point out, most of the work revolves around site-specific problems mainly in relation to local testing for existing technologies. The development of FSR also coincides with parallel developments in research institutes and in ecological systems theory. This involves modeling ecosystems, which also coincided with the growth of computer technology. Although FSR supposedly takes account of the farmer's situation, the actual implementation and

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direction of FSR projects is perhaps more a reflection of the evolutionary processes occurring within the understanding of the specific basis for pest management and the subsequent development of technological approaches for dealing with pests. As such, FSR is still researcher-driven, not farmerdriven. Viewed like this, the following quotation, though paradoxical, is less puzzling. A basic tenet in the emergence of farming systems was that a significant segment of global farmers had been by-passed by the Green Revolution. Their land holdings were too poor to grow high-yielding crops and/or their economies too poor to afford necessary inputs. To date, however, most on-farm tests have involved variety trials and/or fertilizer trials—two of the very specifics that the clientele served by farming systems were not supposed to be able to afford. This seems puzzling. —Barfield and Swisher (1994) Farmer first research (FFR) evolved in response to FSR and was first proposed by Rhodes and Booth (1982) and further developed by Chambers, Pacey, and Thrupp (1989). One of the central tenets of this approach is that it should involve a partnership between researchers and farmers, in which farmers learn from scientists who in turn learn from farmers. There is no distinct, predefined technological package that has to be adapted to local conditions. Rather it is a collaborative process of information exchange and dialogue intended to identify and create areas of mutual interest so that both groups (scientists and farmers) can learn from each other in an attempt to find realistic solutions to relevant problems. This system is therefore inherently more participative than its predecessors. However, it cannot be stressed strongly enough that participation and farmers' views and perceptions of their problems, although valid and overlooked in the past, are only part of a bigger picture. Therefore, however tempting it may appear to policymakers, FFR is not a replacement for strategic agricultural policy, local government assistance, international research and development (R&D) and rural infrastructures and support systems. FFR is a complement to these and should add to the system, not replace it. The case studies in Chapter 4 will demonstrate the role of extension in relation to the adoption of IPM. Although failings in extension are often blamed for poor adoption of IPM, the failure has typically been put down to poor funding rather than the particular model of extension employed (Holl, Daily, and Ehrlich, 1990; Bigler, Forrer, and Fried, 1992). Because many commentators have stressed the importance of including farmer knowledge in IPM, one can assume that the FSR model produces better results than T&V, although ironically most of the successful IPM case studies have involved an extension system more in line with T&V than FSR.

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For example, in Indonesia one of the main reasons given for the success of IPM has been the development of "farmer field schools" (Dinham, 1996a). Essentially, these correspond to a hybrid of FSR and TOT approaches to extension. Extension workers help to facilitate the setting up of schools in the villages where basic training is given in the techniques and methodologies of IPM—a situation very reminiscent of the way in which T&V works. Farmers are then encouraged to experiment with these and adapt their own methodologies and those of IPM in a way compatible to local conditions—essentially an FSR type of approach. In general, the "IPM school" system has worked well in conditions more akin to those where successful T&V has worked. There is still a lack of adoption of IPM in resource-poor farmer communities where people live and work under extremely complex ecological and unstable economic conditions. In part, the resemblance of typical IPM extension to T&V may simply be due to the relative prepondarence of T&V relative to FSR prior to the 1980s, but at the same time we believe this to be symptomatic of the fact that IPM is largely an externally derived package—the very type of top-down package ideally suited to the T&V model of extension. This reality contradicts a commonly held viewpoint about what is needed in IPM extension, as the following quotation by Dinham (1996a) illustrates: "IPM training is not effective when simply packaged as part of a top-down extension message." Often, these arguably top-down extension systems, when applied to IPM, are classified as the farmer first approach, almost as if the label carries some sort of approval. Whether they are really "farmer first" will be discussed later. These and other TOT models, although popular, fail to allow information to flow from farmer to researcher. As van den Ban and Hawkins point out: The extension service has an important duty to inform research organizations of farmers' problems which require solving. It is pointless doing research on the assumption that irrigation and resources to buy fertilizers and other inputs are available to farmers who in fact have few resources and rely on annual rainfall. —van den Ban and Hawkins (1988) Although this view seems logical, problems can arise when a dominant paradigm such as IPM is introduced into the picture. If the push behind IPM is strong, then could it be that no amount of feedback from the extension service will be able to change the direction of that research? This certainly appears to be the case with IPM. However, judging the impact of IPM purely on the criteria of who, how many, and what type of farmers have adopted the technology is also misleading. Raising the yields and incomes of some farmers will have an impact (spillover effect) on the rest of the political economy of the area. This can have household, village,

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regional, and national implications. It has been argued that directing research at highly diverse and complex environments could, under certain conditions, be counterproductive. An OECD report assessing rice production research states: Scientifically, it is much more difficult to develop varieties for the unfavourable production environments. Moreover, unfavourable environments are highly heterogeneous so that superior varieties, even if successfully bred, can be diffused only in limited areas. Targeting rice research towards unfavourable rice-growing environments, therefore, will not in general be an efficient means of improving income distribution. Furthermore, the potential gain in production efficiency in the rice economy as a whole is largely sacrificed under such a strategy, which must have undesirable consequences on the welfare of the poor rice consumers. —Evenson and David (1993) As such it would appear that the direction of research is dependant on the relative ratios in a country of favorable to unfavorable land for new varities. As will be shown in Chapter 4, IPM in rice production has mainly been successful only in the relatively simple agro-ecosystem of irrigated rice systems, particularly in the Philippines and Indonesia. The more complex areas have received little attention. This is hardly farmer first research. However, regarding the rate of return on investment in rice research, it makes economic sense (for the research institute as much as any of the other supposed beneficiaries) to concentrate on areas where the highest positive impact and uptake is likely to be. It is our assertion that this is exactly what has happened with the development and implementation of IPM and, furthermore, that many resource-poor farmers by definition do not fall within the favorable-environment category. IPM is supposedly designed for resource-poor farmers, but they benefit only indirectly through the aforementioned spillover effects, a redistribution of the benefits gained in the adoption areas, or migration to the more favorable areas.

3 The Genesis of the IPM Ideal

The Birth of IPM The broad approach of IPM as we know it today had its origins in North America, mostly the United States, and in order to analyze its applicability for resource-poor farmers in the developing world we must consider the conditions under which IPM was first developed and for whom it was developed. We will argue in this chapter that agricultural researchers and the pest control strategies that they have helped to develop are not the result of years of "objective" scientific study for the "good of humankind" (a commonly held belief). Rather, these developments are the result of a broader set of complex social, economic, political, and philosophical factors that have evolved alongside and contributed to the industrialization of agriculture in the United States. Once we accept that technological innovation in agriculture is not socially neutral, it becomes apparent that transferring these technologies into different social contexts is fraught with problems. As will be demonstrated, IPM is a technological innovation born out of the industrialization of capital-intensive agriculture, and as such it cannot be easily transferred into the social context of resource-poor farmers doing agricultural work in developing countries without undergoing severe institutional, philosophical, and technological change driven by the people it is intended to serve. Despite all the rhetoric of farmer participation in setting research agendas and selecting appropriate technologies relevant to the farmers' situations, we are still, with IPM, merely presenting them with a series of choices; the essential package is still based upon our ideas of pest control. This conclusion is based upon the two central themes of this chapter, namely "perception" and "power." The development of IPM into the dominant paradigm in crop control results from the mix of ideas and perceptions of the individuals and groups involved in research and development, and this mix is located into the broader context of society in general. The 61

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direction it has taken is the result of the power relationships between and within these groups and individuals with the outcome, more often than not, being the realization of perceptions held by those individuals or groups who possess the most power. The United States is important, and not just because it originated IPM and thereby had a substantial influence on what the paradigm comprises. In addition, the United States has had a massive influence on the spread of IPM throughout the world, including to developing countries. However, because this book is not meant to be a historical account of IPM or U.S. agriculture (excellent accounts already exist for IPM, e.g., Perkins, 1982; Palladino, 1996; and for U.S. agriculture, e.g., Barger and Landsberg, 1942; Rasmussen, 1960; Bogue, 1963), only a brief summary will be given with emphasis on salient points that have influenced implementation. For the purposes of this book the history and development of IPM can be split into three main sections: 1. The industrialization of agriculture in the United States. This includes a consideration of the political, social, and economic forces driving the changes occurring in the farming system that led to the capitally intensive agriculture or agribusiness that we know today. 2. The development of crop protection policy in the United States. This section deals with institutions and the actors within them. 3. The development of entomological research and extension. The development of IPM is inextricably linked to the broad process of the industrialization of agriculture, that is, the transition from small-scale farming to what is termed agribusiness. The widespread adoption of pesticides formed an essential element of this development, and IPM partly arose as a response to the negative environmental effects of widespread pesticide use. Most important, IPM is the product of crop protection scientists, and this group has had a major influence not only on the form of IPM but also upon its promotion at home and abroad by policymakers. The final section of this chapter will examine the export of IPM from the United States to the rest of the world, and the ironies that this presented, given the conditions under which IPM evolved.

The Industrialization of Agriculture To understand the changes that have occurred in U.S. agriculture, it is important to briefly sketch out the social and political position of agriculture in American society. The industrialization of agriculture in the United States is essentially a story of the substitution of capital for labor. Although there is no clearly definable start to or demarcation of the social

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processes that led to the industrialization of agriculture in the United States, we will begin our story at the end of the U.S. Civil War (18611865), a struggle that itself was partly brought on by disputes over import tariffs and the desire of the Southern states to have access to cheap imports, which they could easily pay for by exporting cotton to Europe. The development of the cotton gin allowed textile mills to use the short-staple cotton, which could be easily produced in the South using slave labor. The South became a cotton empire, and by 1860 cotton accounted for a large percentage of the total value of all U.S. exports. After the war, financial ruin in the defeated South and labor shortages in the North allowed the wealthier Northern farmers to make their operations more capital intensive by, among other things, the introduction of horse-drawn machinery (Rasmussen, 1962). To an extent this process of mechanization began before the war, but it accelerated rapidly during the five years of strife and, indeed, has often been put forward as a contributing factor to the North's victory. Intensification not only freed manpower, but also allowed the North to produce far more wheat than was needed for home consumption. Wheat exports from the North tripled during the war, and more than 40 percent of the wheat and flour imported into Great Britain at this time came from the United States. Capitalization in turn influenced the growth of private research into areas such as mechanization and new seed varieties. The fact that in 1865 59 percent of the working population was engaged in agriculture (Bureau of the Census, 1949), coupled with a need to consolidate the populace after the war, led to direct government intervention in the form of the establishment of public research facilities and the passing of the Morrill Land Grant Acts in 1862 and 1890, which offered substantial federal support for the establishment of at least one agricultural college in each state. Allen and Rajotte (1990) describe the aim of these schools: "There the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific or classical studies, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanical arts." The Hatch Act of 1887 provided for the establishment of an agricultural research station at each of the land-grant colleges. This factor, coupled with the passing of the Homestead Act in 1862 that accelerated expansion into the western prairies, further stimulated agricultural technological innovation. New technologies and improvements in transportation and storage for agricultural produce fueled the agricultural revolution. The American dream of conquering the Wild West was becoming a reality. Traditional Indian territories were divided up, and land settlement was actively encouraged. Increasing urban industrialization put more pressure on agriculture to improve its output. With no shortage of land and the development of mechanization, demand for food was outstripped by supply, and consequently by

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1870 the market was saturated and U.S. agriculture was in a depression (Hicks, 1931). As a result of this depression smaller farmers went to the wall, and only the bigger, more progressive, capital-intensive holdings, with their economies of scale, could take advantage of the new technological developments and survive. In this situation, larger farmers could achieve middle-class incomes and status while smallholders went bust. The misery and social dislocation caused by this agricultural depression was deepened with the onset of world depression in 1929. The world depression plus the ability of wealthy farmers to organize into powerful lobbying groups forced the U.S. government to introduce price supports for certain agricultural products in the form of the Agricultural Adjustments Acts of 1933 and 1938. These measures were successful in keeping prices up. However, this also led to overproduction in wheat, cotton, and maize, which was only ameliorated at the beginning of World War II, when these stocks could conveniently become "military reserves" instead of surpluses. President Franklin D. Roosevelt also attempted to pass legislation, the Emergency Relief Act of 1933, to help smallholders. However, because of the size of smallholdings and hostility in the form of accusations of socialism and communism, this scheme failed and the process of exchanging capital for labor continued. World War II further increased the need to replace labor with capital, and technological innovations in machinery, fertilizers, and, increasingly, chemical herbicides and insecticides led to the industrialization of agriculture in the United States. After the war, with the success of DDT and other early organochlorines, the pesticide industry grew rapidly and became interdependent with agriculture: the chemical industry needed a strong customer base, and the farmers needed pesticides. The onset of the Cold War in the 1950s enabled food to become a political weapon. Production had to be increased and pests had become the "enemy" that needed to be defeated once and for all, and with the help of science and the chemical industry they could be defeated. They were not the only enemy, however, as the following quote by Ezra Taft Benson (1960), secretary of agriculture to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, makes clear: "With faith in our ability to move forward we can continue to achieve miracles of production. Without that larger view we are doomed to fasten more chains upon our economy, and finally to reduce ourselves to the level of the socialized systems of the world." This expansion of production based on price supports led, in 1958, to U.S.$8 billion of agricultural surplus being taken into government hands and ultimately to the integration of food production into foreign policy. The intensification of agriculture in the United States, with the concomitant substitution of capital for labor and increased reliance on nonrenewable fossil fuel inputs, continued throughout the 1960s and 1970s. However, this expansion of agriculture, and in particular the heavy reliance

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placed upon chemical pest controls, led to environmental problems. The publication in 1962 of Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring brought to the attention of the American public the environmental damage now commonly associated with agricultural production systems heavily dependent on pesticides. Furthermore, her book represented to many, including some in positions of political and scientific authority, a view of the world and our environment that better suited the changing mood of the 1960s. Environmental degradation and pollution had led many to a philosophical questioning of the then dominant views about humans' role in the environment. Humankind was no longer seen as being above nature and divinely destined to dominate and control all other species, but was instead an integral part of the natural global ecosystem. Carson summed up this philosophy thus: "Control of nature" is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man. The concepts and practices of applied entomology for the most part date from that Stone Age of science. It is our alarming misfortune that so primitive a science has armed itself with the most modern and terrible weapons, and that in turning them against the insect it has also turned them against the earth. —Carson (1962) The ecological and economic impact of chemical pest control strategies has often been termed the "pesticide treadmill" because once farmers get on the treadmill it is virtually impossible to try alternatives and remain a viable business (Clunies-Ross and Hildyard, 1992). However, if the "true" costs to the environment and to human welfare are taken into account, then alternative farming methods look far more promising. This argument suggests that the "true" cost of industrial farming methods should include what economists term "externalities," which are essentially economic and ecological factors that have not been included in any costbenefit analysis of the agricultural production system, but are nonetheless affected by and affect the production system directly or indirectly. Examples of externalities in agriculture include the cost of monitoring and controlling pollution and impacts on public health, either direct effects such as pesticide poisoning caused by unsafe applications or indirect effects via pesticide residues in food. The cost of energy inputs into agriculture in the form of nonrenewable fossil fuels and the dislocation of labor by capital are just some examples of unforeseen, unintended, or undesirable costs associated with agricultural production systems that are left out of the equation (i.e., they are deemed "external" to the system). Alternative approaches to agriculture often attempt to internalize these costs. However, the large capital investment in U.S. agriculture makes

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internalizing these costs a difficult process. Once the money is invested in techniques and machinery to farm in a particular way, the farmer is obliged to stick with it until the investment is paid off. Further, the more that is invested in the enterprise, the more vulnerable it becomes to collapse if there is a pest outbreak. Therefore, continued investment is required in control strategies that will reduce this risk. The agricultural enterprise changed during the nineteenth century from a subsistence way of life into a commercial business. The importance of insect control changed as a result. In subsistence agriculture, the farmer's debt load was low and he made few cash investments. Insect problems caused losses of yield but did not threaten investments made with borrowed money; unless the outbreaks were catastrophic, the farmer bore them without risk of losing his source of livelihood. In commercialized agriculture, insect problems threatened the safety of other cash investments and thereby threatened the farmer's continued ability to stay in business. The standards for acceptable levels of insect control were thus higher than in subsistence agriculture. —Benedict

(1953)

In modern U.S. farming, yield is the determining factor. High-yielding crop varieties often require a stable and controlled environment if they are to make a return on their investment costs. Efficiency is measured in terms of increased yield. Therefore any alternative production system that attempts to incorporate "externalities" into its measure of a "true" definition of efficiency is unlikely to be adopted if there is even the slightest reduction in yield. One of the arguments put forward by adherents of alternative farming is that we should change our definition of efficiency. If, for instance, efficiency is measured in energy terms (how many calories of nonrenewable fossil fuel energy is required to produce a unit quantity of food), then U.S. farming is far from efficient. Miller (1988) has stated that in the United States an energy budget including all fuel-based inputs (harvesting, transportation, processing and packaging) gives us a ratio of 10 calories of nonrenewable fossil fuel used to place 1 calorie on the table. The point here is that definitions of efficiency are often value judgments. The importance of this to developing-country agriculture is that their value judgments may be different from ours, and if we concentrate on increasing yields to improve what we perceive as efficiency, we may, in fact, be reducing efficiency as measured by the local farmers. Such was the power of the environmental movement that government and the establishment, including the chemical and agricultural industry, had to take on board not only the aforementioned environmental and ecological problems but also accommodate the growing demand for a new outlook on our environment. Agriculture and the pest control industry reacted to these changes of perception. Forms of pest control other than pesticides

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had been developed and practiced long before the advent of chemicals, and one response to the problems associated with pesticide use was that biological control and other less chemically based pest control strategies began to gain more credence among the agricultural fraternity. Because of the efficacy and suitability of chemical control compared to other forms of pest control, however, chemicals still hold sway, and indeed the manufacture, sale, and usage of pesticides, though stabilizing in the developed countries, is still increasing in developing countries (Dinham, 1996b). Pesticides still form the backbone of crop protection in the United States and indeed in all developed countries. Agriculture is now agribusiness, and it is a far cry from the smallholder farming communities of the mid-nineteenth-century United States. Economies of scale and the ability to invest large amounts of capital dictate the ability of farmers to stay in business and have changed the size and number of farms that operate now compared to 100 years ago. However, it is also important to realize that the industrialization of agriculture in the United States, as well as being influenced by farmers, also had profound effects on the farming community. As pointed out by Perkins (1982), farmers have always held an ambiguous and somewhat contradictory place within American culture. On the one hand, farmers have been seen as upholders of virtually everything that is perceived as good in American culture: godliness, hard work, honesty, and stalwartness. On the other hand, they have often been depicted as backward, stupid, inbred, and unwilling to accept change. These two opposing views are in fact quite reconcilable when the social context of different farmers is taken into account. As we mentioned previously, the displacement of labor for capital favored bigger, richer farmers over smaller, poorer farmers. The surviving farm businesses were profitable enterprises that enabled their owners to enter into the U.S. middle class. With this came a perceived social status equivalent to that of doctors and other professional groups. These were the innovative, hardworking, stalwart, and honest farmers. Those that failed were obviously from the second definition of farmers. In short, rich farmers had a positive image and poor farmers a negative one. This state of affairs was powerfully portrayed by Steinbeck (1939) in The Grapes of Wrath. With money and status comes power and influence, which in U.S. agriculture influenced the direction of agricultural research and extension in favor of the larger farmers. They were to be the clients of the expanding research establishments, and therefore it was their needs and problems that had to be addressed. Viewed thus, it is obvious that the myth of a socially neutral science and technology serving the greater good of society in general is at best misleading and at worst an unforgivable distortion of the development and impacts of technological changes. The industrialization of agriculture did not help the poorer U.S. farmers, who were to lose their

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livelihoods, and the irony of this history is that the people who most needed assistance to overcome the many complex changes that were occurring in agriculture were the ones who were least likely to receive it.

Research and Development of Crop Protection in the United States As mentioned earlier, the industrialization of agriculture went hand in hand with changes in crop protection. At one level, of course, the changes were very visible—pesticides became the dominant approach to crop protection, followed by a reaction to reduce this dependency. However, there were also influences at play among the people involved in crop protection research and the institutions in which they worked. To gain a truer understanding of why IPM has still not realized many of its stated objectives, we must ascertain something about the perceptions, attitudes, and relationships of the people involved in its evolution. Coupling this to the aforementioned macropolitical and social context gives an insight into why these actors behaved as they did and what scientific, philosophical, and ethical reasoning inspired and influenced their work. As Palladino (1996) states: "Relationships between ideas are relationships between the people that hold them, and alliances between them (and hence, between their ideas) are often determined by the social institutions in which they participate." There are many explanations for the generation, adoption, and diffusion of technological innovations. These range from economic theories such as the "induced innovation theory," put forward by Ruttan and Hyami (1984), whereby technological development occurs as a consequence of differences between economic factors of production, to the "Multiple Sources of Innovation Model" put forward by Biggs (1990), which is essentially an actor-oriented model. Induced innovation theory in relation to agriculture is essentially about the substitution of abundant and cheap factors of production for scarce and expensive factors of production. Ruttan and Hyami (1984) illustrate this theory by describing the changes that occurred in U.S. and Japanese agriculture. In the United States, land availability was not a constraint on production. However, labor was. Therefore mechanization was the induced innovation, and this led to the exchange of human and draught power for that of machines, described as a "labor-saving" technology. In this instance labor can be described as being an inelastic supply. In the case of Japan and Taiwan, the inelastic supply is land, and thus "landsaving" technology is induced. Such land-saving technologies include fertilizers and high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of crops. In both cases the limiting factor of production has induced a technological innovation in response.

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Although induced innovation theory may be a useful tool for economic analysis, this type of analysis is too narrow and essentialist and does not go far enough in helping to explain the underlying social context of why technological innovation is driven in a particular direction at a given time. Thus we have taken the more actor-oriented view of innovation put forward by Biggs and Clay (1981) and Biggs (1990). This model is also concerned with the factors that affect technological innovation. However, unlike induced innovation theory, this model explicitly includes a far broader set of political, economic, and institutional contexts that determine what is considered to be good and bad research or relevant and irrelevant research. Regarding the development of high-yielding varities of wheat, Ellis points out: Genetic material that later became the foundation for green revolution wheat varieties in India came first from farmers' own informal selection procedures in Japan, was later worked on in the United States, then in Mexican research institutes, and was finally transferred to India in the 1960s. This was not a linear process, nor did it begin, as often described, with the scientists working on wheat in CIMYTT (an international agricultural research centre) in Mexico in the late 1950s. —Ellis

(1992)

Inherent in this approach is the role of individuals as well as groups of actors, the interactions among them, their perceptions and degree of power and influence and how these help to mold the outcome of research into the technological innovations that have occurred. The multiple sources of innovation theory should be seen as complementary to the induced innovation theory in that the former gives a more in-depth analysis of who was instrumental in steering the direction of research, whereas the latter gives us the context within which this occurred. The following section is based upon the work of two authors (Perkins, 1980; Perkins, 1982; Palladino, 1996) who have taken this broader optic when describing the historical processes associated with technological innovation in agricultural development. Although there is a vast literature on IPM, its component technologies, case studies, and so on, there is little actually written about the story behind the story. As we mentioned in Chapter 1, it is important to find out how IPM got to where it is today before we can answer the following questions of where it is we want to go and how we are going to get there. Before we discuss a more actor-oriented analysis of the historical development of technological change within IPM and its associated institutions, it is first important to set out the landmarks that occurred in the broader social context of institutional development. Perkins (1980) breaks down the postwar history of IPM into three periods:

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1. Euphoria and the Crisis of Residues (1945-1955) 2. Confusion and the Crisis of the Environment (1955-1972) 3. Changing Paradigms (1968 to present) These stages of the development of crop protection strategies roughly correspond to changes in perception by the American public and the resulting shifts in policy direction that have occurred. As we mentioned earlier, the late nineteenth century was a period of agricultural expansion and industrialization. A significant proportion of the population was involved in agriculture, and these people were politically important—their votes counted. Therefore, the United States had policies that related to the perceived needs of this group at that time. Those needs have changed, and with them so have the resultant policies. Table 3.1 sets out how societal pressures and concerns and influential groups have helped to shape the direction of U.S. agricultural policies. These three periods can be matched with three different policies related to agriculture: an agricultural policy, a food policy, and an environmental policy. Period one marks the ending of what was essentially an agricultural policy. As industrialization occurred at the end of the nineteenth century, there was a desire to provide cheap food for the growing urban population. To achieve this, agriculture had to be invested in and supported. In the early days of this process the rural economy at large benefited. Jobs, either directly related to farming or indirectly related in the manufacture of machinery and other equipment, enabled the rural areas to experience a relative degree of economic stability. However, as the process accelerated and people realized that mechanization could bring economies of scale and reduce labor costs, it became apparent that larger and more wealthy farmers were going to benefit comparatively more than smallholders. With the increasing migration of the rural population to jobs in the urban areas and the ability to relate agriculture to industry and stocks and shares, the rural elite maintained and increased their power base. Their views were now important, and they held enough power and influence to have these views expressed in policy. Thus a policy of increasing farm sizes remained essentially intact. Farm sizes grew, mechanization increased, and the smaller farm holder lost out to the larger producer. Research institutes and the land grant system were developed. Food was produced for a price that was cheap enough to satisfy the demands of the population while enabling employers to keep wages to a minimum. The increasing loss of smallholder farmers was a small price to pay for this expansion—that is, unless you were a small farmer. As agriculture continued to industrialize, it became more vertically integrated into the processing and marketing industries. The arrival of pesticides was treated with euphoria. More control over the system and the extermination of some insect pests seemed achievable. The crisis arrived

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Table 3.1

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The Development of IPM in the United States

Policy Issues

Historical Period Up to Period One: Euphoria and the crisis of residues (1945-1955)

Period Two: Confusion and the crisis of the environment (1955-1972)

Period Three: Changing paradigms (1968 to present)

Policy objectives

Agricultural policy Increase output

Food policy Increase output "Crude to food" policy

Environmental policy Maintain agricultural output Ameliorate environmental concerns

Winners

Larger farmers The public The government. Research institutes and researchers

Larger farmers The public Industry The government Research institutes and researchers

Larger farmers The public Agribusiness sector The government Research institutes and researchers

Losers

Smaller farmers

Smaller farmers The environment The government

Supposedly no one— IPM saves the day Environment—though to a lesser extent than previously

with the now familiar story of resistance and resurgence. The answer was to develop more pesticides. The second period—confusion and the crisis of the environment—coincides with policy that can be better related to food than agriculture. By this we mean to suggest that the industrialization of agriculture was so advanced by now that it was the views of industrialists, large farmers, and the pesticides and food industries that were politically important and thus influential; the views of the majority of the rural population in relation to the vested interests of these groups became less significant nationally. The problems of pests, pesticides contamination, and environmental damage were only just beginning to be recognized. The research institutions were responding to these concerns by shifting some of the emphasis away from chemical control as the single strategy to alternative approaches. The U.S. government still needed surplus food as a political tool, and thus production had to be maintained. Rich farmers, the chemical industry, and food consumers all wanted the benefits of this system, but at the same time there was growing public concern over the environmental and ecological impact of the food system. The euphoria and pesticide residues crisis of the agricultural policy now gave way to confusion and an environmental crisis. The problem was how to keep up production, protect the environment, and maintain an economically viable agribusiness sector. For these

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reasons, it is easy to see how the government was both a winner and a loser at the same time. This was also true for some farmers who were experiencing severe pest problems brought about by pesticides. The final period—changing paradigms—marks the beginnings of environmental policy. Public concern over pesticides and the percieved and visible environmental damage ensured a change of policy. As environmental concerns grew among the general public, their views became politically important and therefore these issues had to be addressed, while, of course, not upsetting the agribusiness elite and associated industries too much. The answer was the development of IPM. Pesticides could still be used— albeit in lower doses—alternative strategies sought, the environment protected, large farmers kept in business, yields maintained, and savings made on pesticide expenditure. All this had to be achieved to satisfy public concern, but in a manner that did not involve individuals having to change their lifestyles. The general public still demand a huge variety of abundant and cheap food. Furthermore, as we shall see in Chapter 4, all of this could be exported to developing countries to help them overcome the same environmental problems of pesticide overuse that they were experiencing as a consequence of adopting our industrialized, pesticide-dependant farming techniques. From this perspective it easy to see how IPM has become so full of rhetoric—it can satisfy everybody all of the time.

The Development of Entomological Research and Extension The Morrill Land Grant Acts of 1862 and 1890 and the Hatch Act passed in 1887 effectively institutionalized the U.S. agricultural research base. These acts marked the beginnings of publicly funded agricultural research, with the aim being to gear research specifically to the practical problems encountered by farmers. The Smith-Lever Act of 1914 helped to establish the agricultural extension service, and the land-grant colleges and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) were expected to work together to "aid in diffusing among the people of the United States useful and practical information on subjects relating to agriculture and home economics and to encourage participation of same" (Allen and Rajotte, 1990). Research findings were passed via the extension service directly to the farmer. This system is essentially similar to the "transfer of technology" type of approach outlined in Chapter 2—research to extension to farmer. The interests of the farmer as well as the research institutes are, in this context, mutually compatible. The farmer gets a technology that is suited to capitalintensive agriculture. This basic approach is by no means unique to the United States, a point that will be illustrated in the case studies in Chapter 4. With an emphasis on research and extension, U.S. agriculture was now affected by government policies that were directly related to the needs of

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the most "progressive" and powerful farmers. In addition, the security of tenure brought about by establishment of institutions directly related to agriculture enabled entomology to become a formal profession and the individuals involved in it to be regarded as experts. Being, or rather, becoming an expert has been described by Larson (1977) as "for the middle classes a novel possibility of gaining status through work." This professionalization occurred in entomology and in farming just as it did in other professions. Farmers have been practicing pest control for as long as farming has existed, but in the United States they became professional only through the processes of the capitalization of their industry. Entomologists have gained expert status through the institutionalization of their occupation brought about by government acts. They were provided with a ready-made clientele (i.e., farmers) seeking increasingly standardized solutions to their everyday problems. Entomology as a profession could provide a series of relatively uniform products with which to tackle this task. Late in the nineteenth century e n t o m o l o g y b e c a m e recognised as a distinctive, scientific area. T h e social factor p r o m o t i n g the crystallization of the field w a s the commercialization of agriculture. The entomologists o r g a n i z e d their first national professional g r o u p , the A m e r i c a n Association for E c o n o m i c Entomologists, in 1 8 8 9 . The establishment of the agricultural experiment stations in 1 8 8 8 led to m a n y professional opportunities. By 1 8 9 4 , 4 2 States a n d Territories e m p l o y e d persons for w o r k o n insects. In 1 9 0 8 , the entomologists started a national journal for publication of research, the Journal of Economic Entomology. —Howard (1930)

With the aforementioned shifts in agricultural practices (from prechemical control to chemical control to IPM) the entomological profession has had to make parallel changes in its approach to research. In the early days of their profession entomologists could be seen as taxonomists and applied biologists; with the advent of the chemical control era, as chemists; with the growth of the environmental movement, as ecologists; and in the IPM era as a mixture of biologist, chemist, ecologist, environmentalist, and geneticist. The processes involved in this complex "juggling of hats" has been described in great detail by Palladino (1996). One of the key issues that Palladino sees behind this chameleonlike ability is the notion that these scientists, while striving to find practical solutions to practical problems, needed a solid theoretical basis for their scientific approach to the challenges they faced. As he aptly describes, they needed ecology or population biology to be to entomology what physics is to engineering. If this were to be realized, not only would professional status be achieved through the fruits of their work, but also they would achieve scientific

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credibility among their peer group and of course would receive continued funding. This last point is very important in relation to the development and potential export of IPM. Universities and research centers employ entomologists, and to gain promotion, respect, and thus status they must publish research, ideally in refereed journals. This can be a highly insular and at times confrontational process. First, to gain a research grant they have to mold the proposal to fit the aims and objectives of the funder while keeping ahead of competitors. Second, the insularity comes from fear of someone else cashing in on their ideas, and finally, the confrontation comes from fighting in their corner. After all, if they are proved wrong, surely that is an indication of lack of professional ability. It is important to note that this same process operates at an institutional level. The work of Perkins (1982) tends to explain this phenomenon by concentrating on the direction that agricultural research and extension took in terms of the different philosophical and ideological views of the individual researchers, the research groups, and society in general. He includes life histories of the leading actors in the field of entomological research. Furthermore, he draws distinctions between the different stances taken by those advocating theoretical approaches and those seeking to find immediate solutions to practical problems of pest control. Palladino (1996) goes farther than this and also includes in his analysis of events a more political and institutional stance. In Palladino's work the conflict between the actors within institutions and the overall competition between the resultant differing approaches taken by these institutions, coupled with their ability to align themselves with the environmental movement, played a major role in the outcome of the overall research direction. He concludes that the proponents of IPM were far more adroit at this game than their competitors and consequently were able to gain more government funding for their research. The continued government support for crop protection research with an environmentally friendly face led to the establishment of control programs for specific pest/crop complexes and also large research projects. The largest and most influential research program in relation to the development of IPM was the Huffaker project (1972 to 1979), jointly funded by the National Science Foundation, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the USDA. Although this project was to be completed in 1979, in essence it continued into the 1980s as the Atkinson project. This huge project launched IPM in the United States and ultimately the world. The project focused primarily on insect pest management in six crops: cotton, soybeans, alfalfa, citrus fruits, pome fruits (apples and pears), and stone fruits (peaches and plums). In its time, as described by Perkins (1982), it was the largest scientifically coordinated research project ever launched for insect control; nineteen universities, sections of the USDA, and private industry supplied over 300 researchers who worked over seven years and

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spent about U.S.$13 million producing over 250 scientific papers. It was an effort to organize research so as to transcend disciplinary, organizational, political, geographic, and crop-specialty barriers that usually inhibited cooperation among entomologists and other agricultural and engineering scientists. In other words, the Huffaker project attempted to promote interdisciplinarity. Almost a "revival" movement, it showed the entomological community by example that there was a new, viable way of conceptualizing insect problems and searching for solutions. However, it can also be viewed as a demonstration that the power to shape agricultural research was no longer confined to a constituency of agriculturists and agricultural scientists, even though those two groups still retained a preponderance of influence. The Huffaker project was also political salvation for the Nixon administration, whose EPA was under severe pressure from environmentalists and the courts to ban DDT. However, due to the aforementioned complexities involving institutional, theoretical, and individual conflicts, the interdisciplinary aspect of the Huffaker project experienced particular difficulties. For example, the emphasis on publications as a means of gauging a scientist's standing has actually hindered this process. Rather than broadening research agendas and encouraging collaboration, this emphasis resulted in more research on a greater number of increasingly narrow topics. Apart from these institutional problems, the project was instrumental in demonstrating that IPM programs could be applied to certain cropping systems without causing economic loss and while reducing chemical pesticide applications. During the same period as the Huffaker project, funding was also provided by the USDA Federal Extension Service for the development of pilot pest management programs under the auspices of the Cooperative Extension Service (CES). These programs measured pest levels in the field as a way to determine the need for the application of pesticides (Frisbie and Adkisson, 1985). Following the Huffaker project, in 1979, was a new initiative developed by seventeen universities and known as the Consortium for Integrated Pest Management (CIPM). This project was initially funded by the EPA, and one of its main goals was not just to focus on pests and pesticides but to look at the whole cropping system, including weeds. The project focused on cotton, alfalfa, soybeans, and apples (Frisbie and Adkisson, 1985). IPM has gone from strength to strength in terms of research funding and its applicability in dealing with the overuse of pesticides on high-value monoculture crops in the United States. In 1992, what can only be described as the largest and most ambitious attempt to date to implement IPM on a national scale was initiated. The National IPM Forum, brought about by support from the Nixon and Carter administrations and consisting

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of the USDA and land-grant universities, sponsored by the USDA, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the EPA, presented to the Clinton administration in September 1993 a proposal stating that "implementing IPM practices on 75 percent of the nation's food crop acres by the year 2000 was a national goal" (NIPMI, 1996). In 1994, the USDA developed a strategic plan for a department-wide IPM initiative to achieve this goal. The initiative has four objectives: coordinating the project effectively; developing methods to evaluate progress using environmental, economic, health, and social factors; identifying needs of producers and providing support and resources to carry out the program; and finally, implementing a communication and information exchange program. The overall expenditures for IPM in 1996 were estimated to be U.S.$ 189.7 million, and a projected estimate for 1997 is U.S.$204.9 million (Jacobsen, 1996).

The Victory of an Ideal In this section we will deal mainly with the issues surrounding the development of international agricultural research and development centers and the role that they played in dissemination of crop protection paradigms, including IPM. The story of international agricultural research and extension can be traced back, in many developing countries, to the colonial period and, in particular, to the establishment of botanical gardens (Evensen and Pray, 1991). European colonial powers conducted their own research on plantation crops, which were grown mainly for export. This research could be directed through the development of government-run research centers, through private companies, and later on through university departments. In relation to the spread of IPM, we will concern ourselves with the development of the international agricultural research networks that had their beginnings in the 1940s with a program based in Mexico and developed by the Cooperative Mexican Agricultural Program. This was funded by the Mexican government and the Rockefeller Foundation in 1943, and led to the eventual establishment of the Centro Internacional de Megoramiento de Maiz y Trigo (CIMMYT) in 1963, with Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation financial assistance (Evensen and Pray, 1991; Tribe, 1994). This program introduced high-yielding varieties of wheat into the Mexican farming system. The success of this introduction was attributed to CIMMYT (though, as we discussed previously, the process involved many other actors, including Japanese farmers, the providers of the original germplasm; see Ellis, 1992). This provided evidence of the potential productivity of international collaboration in increasing yields for developing-country agriculture. As a result of this success, the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations funded the establishment of the International

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Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Banos, the Philippines, in 1960. The aim was to repeat the success of the Mexican project, this time with rice. This period marks the beginnings of the Green Revolution, whereby it was thought that the world's food shortages could be brought under control through the introduction of potentially high-yielding varieties and an assorted package of inputs—pesticides and fertilizers. Eleven other centers around the world were established after IRRI and CIMMYT. In 1971 the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) was formed. This was founded by the FAO, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), World Bank, Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, and donor governments that contribute to it as well as developing countries that benefit from it. The aim of this institution was to consolidate and extend the IRRI and CIMMYT model of agricultural research (Ellis, 1992). Although CGIAR is perhaps the most well-known set of international research centers, there are many other international research centers around the world that are not affiliated with this group. The CGIAR centers specialize in food commodities, and each generally focuses on one crop, such as rice or wheat. It is also worth noting, as pointed out by Biggs (1990), that there are other types of agricultural research centers based on export crops, some of which are national and others international. Some are remnants of the colonial past. International companies also run their own research programs domestically and in developing countries. The importance of CGIAR in relation to IPM is that these research institutes were the driving force behind the export of Green Revolution technologies, and, as we shall see in Chapter 4, it was as a response to this process that IPM was also exported. These institutes were the vehicle for exporting industrialized, high-input, developed-country agricultural systems into the context of developing-country agriculture. Not only were there huge social and economic implications, but also a set of environmental and ecological consequences similar to what had occurred in the United States.

Conclusion The industrialization of agriculture in the United States has served as a model that has been exported to developing countries in the form of pesticides, fertilizers, high-yielding varieties of crops, and so on. IPM has for many years been promoted as the way forward in crop protection for many developing countries, but the social, political, institutional, economic, environmental, and ecological contexts of these countries are completely different from those of the United States. IPM has been adopted by virtually all the international agricultural research centers, the FAO, and many governments, both developed and developing. Zadoks (1993) lists the following

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countries as either explicitly or implicitly declaring IPM as official policy: India, Malaysia, Germany, Indonesia, the Philippines, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (1992) also supported IPM at the Agenda 21 Conference in Rio. The United States can also be added to this list. It is essential to bear in mind that the development of research and extension institutes has not been directly influenced by their supposed beneficiaries (resource-poor farmers) but rather by their benefactors (research institutes and governments). As Perkins (1982) points out, it is ironic to think that resource-poor farmers in developing countries are being encouraged, some quite happily, to get on to the very same treadmill of capitalintensive agriculture that destroyed their U.S. counterparts. The technology is there; the problem at first appears to be merely one of a lack of adoption. The cure so far has largely been to fine tune the extension services and more recently to take a broader sociological and economic view of the recipients. In this chapter we have shown, through a historical analysis, that IPM has evolved as a response to problems caused by the industrialization of agriculture and, furthermore, that both agricultural industrialization and IPM have been driven by the perceptions of certain individuals and groups of actors who have had the most power to influence policy and outcomes. When IPM is seen like this, it is possible to conclude that research institutes and the researchers working in them have not been developing agricultural technologies in relation to pest control purely with the Utopian goal of assisting the world to feed itself. A more realistic picture is that they have responded to the broader social context of agriculture, and that the adopted technologies have been those that fit this picture. Thus, IPM can be said to treat the symptoms of agricultural industrialization, not the causes. Therefore, the export of IPM should be based upon acceptance of who it is that we are actually trying to benefit. If it is resource-poor farmers, then the only logical conclusion is that they will have to be empowered so that their perceptions can be realized through policies that suit them. If not, we must accept that resource-poor farmers will have to undergo the same fate as their Western counterparts. Either way, we have to realize that what we are actually trying to do is help these people stop being resourcepoor. Here lies the paradox. If it is accepted that technology has to fit the broader social context of farming rather than the other way around, then a technology developed to fit resource-poor farming cannot be expected to make farmers resource-rich. To get over this problem, IPM has tried to be all things to all people. This self-deception is not helpful because it should be obvious by now that for IPM to really be farmer first, researchers, research institutes, and developed-country governments must accept the necessary changes in our practices to reflect the needs of the supposed beneficiaries. This will require institutional and political change.

4 Making IPM Work

It is now time to discuss, using some case study material, some of the different countries where IPM has been used, the crops on which it has been tried, and what impact it has had. From this case study material, we hope to be able to demonstrate the main conditions for the success of IPM projects and build up a picture of the linkages between the evolution and development of IPM in the United States and its potential for export to the developing world. IPM has been put into practice worldwide, although most of the examples have been based on pesticide management rather than true IPM (Barfield and Swisher, 1994), and the number of crops involved has been limited. The connection between overuse of pesticides and IPM has already been pointed out in previous chapters and will become more apparent as we go through the case studies. On a global scale, the production of cotton and rice make up the bulk of the world use of pesticides (Conway and Pretty, 1991), and it is to be expected that problems with pesticide use would be most pronounced with these crops and lead to major efforts to introduce IPM. Indeed, this expectation has been realized; many of the classic examples of IPM, at least in its pesticide management form, can be found in cotton and rice, and these two crops will form the bulk of our case studies. This is not to say that examples cannot be found with other crops, and excellent IPM case studies can also be found with tree crops such as citrus and apples and greenhouse crops. No doubt everyone involved in IPM will have their own favorite example, but the conclusions we wish to draw regarding the adoption of IPM can easily be made with cotton and rice. Another reason for focusing on rice is that it represents one of the few examples of successful IPM practiced on a food staple crop—most of the other examples relate to high-value cash crops. A third reason for focusing on cotton and rice is that they are annual field crops commonly grown in developing countries. First, we will look at IPM and cotton, which should enable us to see clearly the connections between IPM's historical development and its 79

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implementation. Next we will look at the Indonesian and Filipino IPM rice projects. Then we will evaluate success with IPM and the problems of implementation in some African and Latin American countries. This will put us in a position to evaluate IPM implementation prospects in a resourcepoor farmer context and make some suggestions about its lack of adoption and its degree of suitability.

The Classic Examples of IPM Cotton Insect Pest Management Cotton is the world's most important fiber crop. It is grown in over sixty countries and is the principle crop on 2.5 percent of the world's cultivated land (WRI, 1994). In the United States, cotton—mostly upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum)—is grown on 4.5 million hectares, and the total annual production of cotton in 1994 was 3.5 metric tons, of which 42 percent is exported (Luttrell, 1994). The importance of cotton in relation to the development of IPM is primarily that cotton has used more insecticide than any other single crop in the United States—29 million kilograms of insecticides in 1993 (Pimentel et al„ 1993). In the words of Perkins, (1982), "it is not surprising therefore, that some of the worst 'horror stories' about insecticides have come from that crop." He then goes on to quote van den Bosch as saying "ole King cotton has had a melancholy addiction to chemicals." The widespread use of pesticides in cotton is historically associated with the establishment of two pests: the boll weevil (Anthonomous granáis) and the pink bollworm (Pectinophora gossypiella) (Luttrell, 1994). This statement, that the unwise use of pesticides may be the cause of insect problems, may at first appear counterintuitive; after all, pesticides kill pests. We therefore need to ask the following questions: Why these pests? Why overuse of pesticides? How did these lead to IPM? Any crop grown as a monoculture provides a large source of food for its related pest complex. For a pest in a cotton plantation, food is in an unlimited supply. Thus the conditions for a population explosion are perfect. With the development of ever larger cotton plantations in the United States, associated with cotton's commoditization, it was only a matter of time before "disaster" struck. Bottrell and Adkisson (1977) describe the production and associated pest control strategies for cotton in five phases: 1. Subsistence: This is low input-low output subsistence agriculture and is dependant on handpicking the pests and cultural methods of control.

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2. Exploitation: This coincides with the industrialization of production, that is, mechanization and the extensive use of pesticides. This occurred in the United States with the advent of DDT and other organochlorine insecticides in the late 1940s. 3. Crisis: The inevitable onset of pesticide resistance and pest resurgence. 4. Disaster: Massive losses because of uncontrolled pest attack leading to the collapse of the crop and eventually the local economy. 5. Recovery: This is related, according to Doutt and Smith (1971), to the development of an IPM-based strategy using many different suppression techniques. Severe pest problems first appeared in cotton in the United States in 1892 (Barfield and Swisher, 1994). The boll weevil spread north from Mexico, no doubt encouraged by the expanded production area and thus unlimited supply of food that had been so generously supplied by the expansion of cotton in the southern states of the United States. Without the availability of mass-produced synthetic insecticides, the resulting devastation was tackled through a variety of control techniques, including the use of shorter-season varieties, alteration of planting dates, and the assistance of the endemic natural enemy population (Barfield and Swisher, 1994). The occurrence of the boll weevil further stimulated research and funding for the land-grant university system in an effort to find a solution. This was the first major cotton pest infestation that could be described as a boom and bust production cycle, which was to become characteristic of large-scale cotton production systems. With the advent of synthetic pesticides in the late 1940s, it was assumed that total control of cotton pests could be achieved. At first all went well: Weevils died by the millions. One author wrote that farmers of the day were so overjoyed as to "jump with orgasmic frivolity" (Barfield and Swisher, 1994). Research funding was directed at programs to find more efficient pesticides. Entomologists were proud to be seen as chemists. However, this state of elation and increased incomes for farmers, death of weevils, and a higher professional status for entomologists was not to last. By the mid1950s weevils began to show signs of resistance to pesticides (Bottrell and Adkisson, 1977; Perkins, 1980; Pimentel et al., 1993; Barfield and Swisher, 1994), and losses began to mount. Farmers responded by increasing the use of pesticide, but this only helped accelerate the onset of resistance. The result was a sort of pesticide "arms race" or the so-called pesticide treadmill. Perhaps the most widely used and striking example of the near collapse of the cotton industry in the United States is the events that took place in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas (Perkins, 1982; Cate, 1985;

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Perkins and Holochuk, 1993). Resistance to chlorinated hydrocarbons had already started to ring alarm bells in the U.S. cotton industry, but the problem did not strike the Lower Rio Grande Valley until the early 1960s. In an attempt to overcome the boll weevil problem, the chemical control strategists had unwittingly created other problems. The campaign launched against the weevil created two new pests, namely, the cotton bollworm (Heliothis zea) and the tobacco budworm (Heliothis virescens). DDT and parathion were used to control the outbreak of bollworm caused by the poisoning of boll weevils. By the late 1960s, in an attempt to counter the resistance of boll weevils to hydrocarbons, farmers adopted spraying of organophosphates—thus temporarily reducing weevils again but at the expense of making the bollworm problem worse (Perkins, 1982). As pointed out by Cate (1985), by the late 1960s the economy of the entire region of the Lower Rio Grande Valley was threatened. (It is perhaps worthy of note here that the chemical industry, at the same time it was investing vast sums of money into pesticide research, was also rapidly developing synthetic fabrics that threatened the cotton industry it was supposed to be supporting. This, coupled with the expansion of imports of cheaper foreign cotton, was also having a detrimental effect on the domestic cotton industry.) Besides environmental and economic impacts, pesticide use affected human health, directly through poisonings and indirectly through contamination of produce. As these problems first became apparent, and in response to requests from the cotton industry, the USDA set up the Boll Weevil Research Laboratory (BWRL) in 1958 (Perkins and Holochuk, 1993). This center not only studied chemical control strategies but also the basic ecology and biology of weevils, plant physiology, host plant resistance, and cultural control methods. As we mentioned in Chapter 3, the response by researchers to the chemical crisis stimulated two similar but ideologically different research strategies: a total eradication strand and the IPM strand. It is obvious that these two schools of thought were not mutually exclusive, and many entomologists would fall somewhere along the continuum from total control (pest eradication, using all available technologies and methods) to management (manipulation of pest populations to keep them below the economic injury level). In 1969 the BWRL launched the largest, at that time, entomological research program ever undertaken: the Pilot Boll Weevil Eradication Experiment (PBWEE). The outcome of this experiment, carried out between 1971 and 1973, was ambiguous. As Perkins (1980) points out, some weevils were found in the eradication zone after the end of the experiment. Adherents for eradication insisted that further refinements and new technologies could eradicate the weevil. IPMers, however, insisted that surviving weevils indicated failure (Perkins, 1980). The eradication approach was still in operation in the Carolinas, Florida, Georgia, and Alabama in the mid-1980s, under the direction of the Southeastern Boll Weevil Eradication Program.

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However, the IPM philosophy survived and is seen as the way forward. As we described already in Chapter 3, this may reflect the shift in public opinion (reflected in public policy) driven by the environmental crisis associated with the indiscriminate use of chemicals. It was the Huffaker project and the EPA-funded Consortium for Integrated Pest Management (CIPM) that took up the mantle of IPM. Luttrell (1994) notes that the enhanced development and implementation of IPM in the 1970s and 1980s and the increased funding made available for cotton extension programs stimulated the development of a network of technical expertise for the expansion of IPM concepts. As a result of these developments, by 1979 insecticide use on cotton in Texas had fallen by 90 percent since 1966 (Pimentel et al., 1993). Methodologies now being used in cotton IPM consist of extensive and regular scouting for pest densities, varietal changes, cultural control, biological control, and, of course, insecticides. When a threshold is reached, interventionist strategies (usually pesticide application) are taken. It is important to bear in mind that one of the key components of IPM success is area-wide collaboration between growers. A recent management program in the Imperial Valley, California (Chu et al., 1996), has shown that cultural practices such as the introduction of early planting and a shortseason cotton system can reduce the levels of pink bollworm infestation. Ironically, this is effectively the same system that was in place before the pesticide revolution allowed farmers to opt for a high-input, long-season, high-yielding variety (Stoner, Sawyer, and Shelton, 1986). However, even in the U.S. cotton system there are problems with the rate of IPM adoption. These have been related to issues of system complexity and its lack of dramatic, obvious results. At present most research is government funded, and resources appear to be lacking for fully effective extension and the establishment of self-supporting programs in the private sector (Stoner, Sawyer, and Shelton, 1986). Due to the vast amount of information required for successful IPM implementation, there are also associated problems of information overload. Geyer et al. (1994) have developed a computer-based decisionmaking system designed to reduce the risk of human error and speed up the decisionmaking process. Bowden, Luttrell, and Shin (1992) have developed what they describe as a rulebased expert system called "cotton insect consultant for expert management" (CIC-EM). This is another computer-based system intended to assist growers and consultants in making better decisions regarding cotton crop protection by reducing the use of insecticides while maintaining profits. The story of cotton in the United States is not unique. A cotton production system similar to that in the United States was developed in the Cañete Valley of Peru, and this still remains one of the most-quoted IPM success stories. Debach (1974) describes an almost identical chain of events happening at the same time as the events in Texas, with the eventual introduction of cultural and other nonchemical-based methods to bring

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the situation under control and return the newly created pest populations to their former innocuous levels. Cotton production in other developing countries has exhibited patterns similar to those mentioned in this study; two examples are mentioned later in this chapter. Some important lessons can be learned from the cotton experience in the United States and elsewhere. The main lesson is that IPM in cotton has evolved in response to two very discernible characteristics. The first is the establishment of a monoculture cropping system with a vast support network. In the case of cotton, this enabled the further commoditization of the crop and thus increased profits and, as we shall see in the case of rice in the Philippines and Indonesia, it allowed the establishment of food selfsufficiency. Once a relatively stable economic system is established, then the application of economic thresholds as a means of governing pesticide use becomes more achievable. Second, monoculture cropping patterns have comparatively simple pest complexes, and are thus particularly suitable for single-strategy, blanket pest control technologies such as pesticides. If one accepts these preconditions for IPM implementation and the aforementioned five descriptive phases, it is perhaps possible to view IPM as a reactive strategy rather than a proactive one. As Stoner, Sawyer, and Shelton (1986) say, "a crisis stimulated adoption." Production uncertainty (Hurd, 1994), market constraints (White and Wetzstein, 1995), more focus on nonchemical IPM tactics by strengthening the links between research and farmers constraints, and educating the public (Steffey, 1995) are just some of the problems and suggested solutions regarding IPM implementation. Luttrell (1994) comments that the introduction of new and immediately effective chemical insecticides acts as a disincentive for the continued use of IPM and that farmers appear to operate on a boom and bust cycle in which IPM is dropped if a new chemical pesticide is introduced and IPM is reinstituted only when problems occur. Dent (1991) points out the uneven funding for control strategies, highlighting Van Lenteren's research (1987), which indicated that the financial support (virtually all governmental) for biological control was estimated to be about 1 percent of the amount spent by agrochemical companies on pesticides. Rice, IPM, and the Green Revolution Like cotton, rice is a crop that has attracted a great deal of attention with regard to IPM. Although both are annual crops widely grown in many developing countries, they have little else in common. The most apparent difference between them is probably the fact that while cotton is a cash crop, grown for its fiber, rice is a food crop that forms the staple food for half of the world's population (Brady, 1980; Swaminathan, 1984). Worldwide, rice is harvested from 146 million hectares of land (IRRI, 1991), and

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forms a substantial component of the economy in a number of countries. Unlike cotton, rice cultivation takes a variety of very disparate forms. Lowland or paddy rice requires a period of flooding before the crop will yield, whereas upland rice can be grown in a fashion similar to wheat and other cereals. The almost complete requirement for flooding in lowland rice has led in many countries to the development of complex water management systems (paddies) and a need for regular maintenance and repair. This in turn has resulted in an intensification of production and an almost complete paddy rice monoculture in a number of countries, particularly in Asia. Also, like cotton, rice is attacked by a well-defined and important pest complex. Despite the differences, it is these two common factors (monoculture and a well-defined and important pest complex) that have primarily been responsible for the success of IPM in both cotton and paddy rice. Given rice's importance as a food crop, any program that sets out to improve the availability of food in Asia would naturally focus on it, and indeed this is what has happened. The introduction of high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of rice and wheat combined with the associated packages of inputs (pesticide and fertilizer) necessary to achieve yield increases occurred in the early 1960s, and formed the basis of what has become known as the Green Revolution. Although we cannot discuss all of the controversies surrounding the Green Revolution, which are both complex and hotly debated to this day, it is our assertion that the Green Revolution laid the foundations for the later adoption of IPM. To help clarify this, we review some of the salient points regarding this period of rapid technological change. The debates surrounding the impact of the Green Revolution have become polarized. At one end there are the proponents of this approach, and they would state that yields rose and prices fell, with subsequent benefits for the consumer; that nationally and locally the economy gained; that poor and rich people's lives were improved, either directly or indirectly; and that regional disparities in adoption could be countered by redirected investments made available through the improved macroeconomic situation brought about by the Green Revolution, or that people could migrate to more prosperous areas, switch employment, or both. At the other end of this spectrum are the opponents, who feel that the Green Revolution exacerbated social divisions by increasing the gap between resource-rich and resource-poor farmers and that larger farmers gained through economies of scale. Reduced prices for produce, although helping urban supply, also adversely affected the poorer rural communities. Beneficial insect populations were decimated by extensive pesticide use and a reduction in biodiversity, and other ills associated with the overuse of pesticides, including human health impacts, have in general terms damaged the ecology of the affected regions and the environment at large.

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It should be borne in mind that not only does the above catalogue of criteria contain omissions, but also that the statements represent extremes of perceptions, from very positive to very negative, and that most people's views lie some where along this continuum. Suffice it say that the issue also appears to be one of equity (access and entitlement) and that essentially there were some winners and some losers and that over time their positions may vary as problems and perceptions change. In other words, the impacts of the Green Revolution have varied in degree both spatially and temporally. Rather than adopting a position on this continuum, it is perhaps better just to state that the Green Revolution had social, economic, political, and environmental impacts that affected all classes and castes in different societies (in isolation and collectively, at the individual, household, community, regional, and even national levels) in different ways that were geographically and temporally variable. These complex and diverse phenomena surrounding the Green Revolution in Asia are very well represented in the academic literature, and a summary can be found in Lipton and Longhurst (1989). These authors state that views on MVs (modern varieties) have gone from "euphoria," at the time of adoption, to "absurdly gloomy," at a second phase of increased inequity. The third stage has been "reassessment," and the fourth stage is renewed "extreme optimism" in new technologies (this refers to the latest developments in biotechnology, which are sometimes referred to as the second Green Revolution). Although the ethos of the Green Revolution was to increase the production of food, the outcomes have much similarity with the cotton story in the United States and elsewhere. Asian paddy rice farmers would probably regard themselves as having little in common with U.S. cotton farmers, but they quickly found themselves on the same pesticide treadmill as their "cotton colleagues." One of the reasons that IPM evolved in response to the impact of this process of technological development is that it allowed the possibility of maintaining the yield gains from rice and wheat HYVs, while reducing the financial costs of pesticides and other inputs and addressing concerns over the environment. If this could be brought about through the participation of targeted communities, then maybe issues of social equity could also be addressed. However, it is important to reiterate that although there are parallels to the United States and cotton production, the intention of the Green Revolution was to increase yields and thus food supply. The move toward IPM has more to do with trying to safeguard the increased yields that had been attained than with responding to an environmental backlash, as was the case with cotton in the United States. In order to explore the adoption of IPM as a result of the Green Revolution, we will focus on two countries, the Philippines and Indonesia, which, like the Cañete Valley in Peru, are often put forward as the classic examples of IPM in many academic papers and books.

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Rice in the Philippines In the Philippines rice is cultivated on 3.2 million hectares, which represents roughly 23 percent of the total agricultural land area of the country. About 52 percent of the rice area is irrigated, 44 percent is under rain-fed cultivation, and the remaining 4 percent is in the uplands (APO, 1993). The Philippines consist of approximately 7,000 islands and islets, and there is an enormous variation in habitats and environments. The intensification of rice production in the Philippines began in the early 1960s. As Teng (1994) points out, before 1964 farmers in the Philippines mainly grew traditional varieties of rice and practiced their own methods of pest control. The IRRI introduced HYVs into the Philippines as part of a government attempt to increase domestic food production and alleviate rural poverty. Agricultural policies and their associated research and development organizations were poised to provide the scientific answers to the world's food problems. On a more cynical note, one might suggest that just as the pesticide industry was beginning to get severely criticized in developed countries, the package of inputs associated with Green Revolution agriculture came along to open new markets that had not been exposed to the environmental activism. In 1954 only 7.5 percent of farmers in the Philippines used synthetic pesticides, but by 1994 over 90 percent of farmers were using them (Teng, 1994). However, during the same period rice yields more than doubled, from 1.21 metric tons per hectare to 2.72 (Teng, 1994). The social and economic impacts of the Green Revolution technologies introduced in this era are hard to quantify, and disagregating the resultant benefits, drawbacks, winners, and losers is, as we have seen, even more complex. The development of the International Agricultural Research Centre (IARC) network and extension system effectively helped to institutionalize the processes of transfer of technology from developed-country agricultural research and development and extension directly into a developing-country context, whereby national and local discrepancies in sociopolitical and economic parameters could more easily be incorporated into the finetuning of the technology and its dissemination. This is still essentially a top-down, transfer of technology approach and as such is led more by researchers than farmers. Furthermore, it is implicit in this process that the source of technologies developed are inherently those of a highly industrialized, capital-intensive agricultural system. The establishment of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), one of the IARCs, in Los Banos in 1960 marks the beginning of the IPM story in the Philippines. The research output was mainly early-maturing HYVs of rice, and the first variety, released in 1965, was called IR8. It is worth noting that initially the new HYVs and the package of inputs necessary for them to achieve their potential were developed for, and grown in, irrigated rice production systems.

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The increase in the use of synthetic chemical pesticides during the 1960s caused essentially the same problems as those associated with cotton in the United States. Pesticides were even advertised as yield enhancers (Kenmore, 1987). Prior to 1964 the most important rice pests were considered to be the rice hispa (Dicladispa armigera), and rice leaf beetle (Oulema oryzae) (Smith, 1972). As Brady (1980) states, the introduction of IR8 and its associated input package of pesticides and fertilizers led to what were previously considered minor pests becoming major pest complexes. Kenmore (1987) describes how this process led to the brown plant hopper (Nilapavarta lugens\ BPH) and the green leaf hopper (Nephotettix spp.; GLH) becoming major pests because their natural enemies were eliminated by the pesticides. In the Philippines, Green Revolution technology was institutionalized in 1973 by a government program called Masagana 99 with the intention of realizing yield increases through credit and advice on rice production with HYVs (Hansen, 1987). Part of the policy was the subsidizing of pesticides, and this resulted in excessive use of pesticides because they became relatively cheap for the farmers to purchase. The work of Kenmore (1987), Litsinger (1993), and Teng (1994) provide ample evidence of what is now a familiar story: pest resurgence, unnecessary applications, misidentification of pests, and boom and bust crop yields. The growing problems in rice production stimulated concerted research efforts at the IARCs, United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), and FAO into the IPM approach to crop protection and fewer applications of pesticide. The course of events that followed effectively matched the evolution of the development of extension systems as mentioned in Chapter 3. In an attempt to implement IPM through extension and education, more on-farm research was carried out, ecological data gathered, farmer involvement increased, and active assistance from the government promised. The culmination of all of this effort was the FAO IPC project initiated in the late 1970s. In 1986 IPM was endorsed as the national crop protection strategy, and in July 1990 the IRRI IPM Research Network began (Teng, 1994). Although there has undoubtedly been a reduction in the use of pesticides on irrigated rice fields, and the increase in yields obtained from the new varieties has been stabilized, there is still a problem of IPM adoption. Some of the reasons for this may lie in the fact that the irrigated lowland production system that lends itself particularly well to IPM strategies represents only 12 percent of the total agricultural area of the country. The rest is upland rice, lowland rain-fed rice, forestry, shifting cultivation, and various other food and cash crops. There is little or no mention of IPM being incorporated or even attempted in these systems. However, even in the favorable areas adoption of IPM in rice has not been as successful as was hoped. When looked at in a purely economic sense, this is hard to understand. If IPM reduces the number of pesticide

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applications and the dosage while maintaining yields, then obviously an economic gain will be made by the farmer—less pesticide surely means less cost. For example, Kenmore (1989) states that farmers who practice IPM can save on average about U.S.$9.5 per hectare per season. At the national economic level, the estimated savings amount to approximately U.S.$1.58 million a year (Kenmore, 1989). Couple this with the savings made by removing pesticide subsidies, and it is obviously a substantial amount of money. IRRI has attempted to overcome the problems of nonadoption through adjustments in the research and extension system. They have introduced training schemes for farmers, researchers, and extensionists, and a "farmer first" approach is followed so that farmers' perceptions, skills, and management techniques can be shared with other farmers and fed back into future research agendas in the research centers. With government backing and the assistance of international and national agricultural research centers, hopes are running high that IPM will spread and that nonadoption will be overcome. At the end of this chapter, we will take up these points and suggest that there are some more fundamental problems with the whole approach of IPM that better explain its continued lack of widespread adoption. Rice in Indonesia Nationally, agriculture contributes 21 percent to the Indonesian gross national product (GNP). Rice is both the staple food and the most dominant crop in the Indonesian agricultural sector and accounts for 30 percent of agricultural GNP (Notoatmojo, 1994). IPM is portrayed as having played a major contribution to rice production in Indonesia and is often heralded as one of the most successful IPM programs in the world. In the 1950s, after gaining independence from the Dutch, Indonesia imported approximately 1 million metric tons of rice per annum (Cederroth and Gerdin, 1986); partly because of the country's colonial past and partly because of poor governance and population growth (Cederroth and Gerdin, 1986). In 1960, as part of the government's National Reconstruction Plan (an eight-year plan), agricultural productivity was given a high priority, with the eventual aim of self-sufficiency in rice. This period marks the beginning of a program known as the BIMAS (Bimbingan Massal, or "massive guidance"). (It is a telling reminder of the influence of multinational companies that in the first years of this project CIBA, Mitsubishi, Hoechst, and Coopa were all involved in credit and distribution schemes centered on their own products [Cederroth and Gerdin, 1986].) However, the early years of this program were a failure. Reasons for this include government corruption, poor extension, useless advice, and, at times, severe urban and rural civil unrest. As a result, a new program was

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launched in 1971 (the National BIMAS program) whereby credit and distribution would be handled by the government through ordinary market channels (Cederroth and Gerdin, 1986). Although this system has undergone institutional and legislative reform since it began, it is essentially the device that was used to introduce the Green Revolution technologies into the Indonesian rice farming system. The next fifteen or so years of rice production in Indonesia saw a massive subsidy of pesticide and fertilizer inputs in an attempt to encourage widespread adoption of HYVs. At times the pesticide subsidies were 85 percent of their cost. Coupled with investment in irrigation systems, fertilizers, extension, and publicity, this helped to transform Indonesia from being the world's largest rice importer to being self-sufficient in rice by 1984 (APO, 1994). However, by 1984 Indonesia had reached the unenviable position of accounting for 20 percent of the global use of rice pesticides. From the beginning, unrestricted pesticide use caused the classic problems of pest resistance and resurgence, with consequent crop losses. The most serious pest was the BPH. By 1977, losses from this insect had reduced the rice harvest by over 1 million metic tons—enough to feed 2.5 million people. Widespread planting of BPH-resistant varieties temporarily halted damage in the early 1980s, but by 1985 the plant hoppers overcame the resistance and were again causing substantial losses. In 1986, the BPH population exploded to the catastrophic levels of 1977, threatening over 50 percent of the rice harvest in Java, the nation's most important rice-growing region. As well as the familiar ecological impacts of pesticides, human poisoning was also becoming a serious problem. The extent of the problem is unknown because only fragmentary data exist, based on those people actually admitted to the hospital (APO, 1993). Even so, during the 19871988 growing season 1,267 cases of human poisoning were reported, of which 99 percent proved fatal (APO, 1993). Although the "concept" of IPM was officially adopted in Indonesia in 1979, its implementation was negligible because of the massive pesticide subsidies, limited experience and knowledge of extension personnel, and massive promotional campaigns by the pesticide companies (APO, 1993). It was only when the government took action to actually ban pesticides and reduce subsidies that IPM had a chance for adoption. Presidential Decree No. 3, instituted in 1986, banned fifty-seven of the sixty-six broadspectrum pesticides used on rice and endorsed IPM as the official "strategy" for rice production. Subsidies were reduced from 75 percent in 1986 to 40 percent in 1987 and removed altogether by January 1989 (APO, 1993). Research conducted by IRRI combined with government funding for IPM development and extension have resulted in Indonesia having arguably the best example of "successful" IPM anywhere in the world. The overall economic impact of IPM has been estimated at U.S.$1 billion

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(WRI, 1994), and since 1989 rice yields have increased by 15 percent and pesticide use has decreased by 60 percent (WRI, 1994). It has been estimated that more than 250,000 farmers have been trained in IPM since 1989 (WRI, 1994). IPM has saved an estimated U.S.$120 million each year for the Indonesian treasury (WRI, 1994). One of the cornerstones of this success has been the encouragement of farmer involvement in the IPM program. This has taken the form of IPM Field Schools set up with the assistance of the FAO. These are held for three or four hours every week over the ten- to twelve-week crop cycle (Winarto, 1994). The aim is for farmers to receive basic training in pest identification and IPM strategies, and for them to decide how best to tackle pest problems based on their own understanding of their particular farming system. The school is located in their own farming context, and they can observe in the field the outcomes of the different approaches. However, despite its success, adoption of IPM in Indonesia still has a long way to go, and calls are often made for the strategies employed, in particular the field schools, to be adopted by other Asian countries. The mountain to be climbed is huge. It has been suggested that, in Asia as a whole, only 0.05 percent of irrigated rice farmers actually practice IPM (approximately 400,000 farmers out of 750 million) and furthermore, that IPM has been used on only about 6.6 million of the 133 million hectares of irrigated rice in Asia (WRI, 1994).

Other Examples of IPM in Developing Countries Outside of the case studies given above, the literature on IPM in developing countries is still largely centered on rice and cotton. For example, in Togo, Zimbabwe, Sudan, and Egypt, IPM has been used on cotton, and in Burkina Faso, Bangladesh, China, India, and Sri Lanka, IPM has been successfully implemented in rice production (Pretty, 1995). In addition, the literature on IPM in Africa is minuscule compared to literature on IPM in Asia, Latin America, and the developed countries of the world. One often-quoted example of successful IPM in Africa is the Gezira scheme in Sudan. This is a 2-million-hectare irrigation project, growing mainly cotton. The history of this scheme dates back to the beginning of this century (Pollard, 1981). It was initiated to secure supplies of cheap and high-quality cotton for the Lancashire cotton industry from the Sudanese state of the British Empire. Essentially the story is one of huge capital investment in the form of irrigation works and the pest problems associated with them, a huge expenditure on pesticides as a result, massive human health problems (both pesticide-related and through the increase in schistosomiasis, malaria, yellow fever, and other ailments associated with irrigation), social dislocation, ecological and environmental damage, and

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just about every other conceivable horror story that can be imagined in relation to vast, poorly planned (depending on who planned it and who benefits) agricultural mega-schemes. However, it can be argued that the monies received for the cotton produced in this area were of vital importance to the Sudanese economy after independence from Britain, and it should be noted that this scheme does provide homes and employment for thousands of people. As a response to the overuse of pesticides in cotton production in Sudan, an IPM project was set in 1979. However, as pointed out by van Emden and Peakall (1996), the emphasis is still on yield maintenance, and as such the real cost of pesticides has yet to realized. In this instance it can only be hoped that futher development of IPM in the Sudan will occurr, if only to ameliorate the aforementioned environmental and social costs of the production system. As with cotton production in the United States and South America, it is clear that under these circumstances the introduction of IPM will obviously have a beneficial effect. Outside of cotton and irrigated rice, there are few other successful and documented examples of IPM application in developing countries. This has not escaped the notice of many workers in this field, and some of the reasons often mentioned for the poor adoption of IPM will be discussed in Chapter 5. A taste of the problems involved has been provided by Holl, Daily, and Ehrlich in relation to the implementation of IPM in Latin America. The major obstacles to implementing IPM in Latin America include unstable governments, lack of legislation (or enforcement thereof) regulating sale, purchase and distribution of pesticides, economic instability and insufficient funding, heavy financial support of pesticides use through the chemical industry and aid programmes, extreme socio-economic stratification, poorly-developed educational systems, and failure to consider cultural practises. —Holl, Daily, and Ehrlich (1990) A similar list of constraints to IPM adoption on South America has been provided by Bentley and Andrews (1996). Given the extensive scope of the above statement, it is hardly surprising to find comments like the following from Murray (1994): "In spite of several efforts, IPM has largely failed to take hold in Latin American farming." Van Emden and Peakall (1996) state that IPM in Africa should be targeted to different situations: food crops on which no or little pesticide has yet been used, and commercial crops on which overuse has occurred. They go on to give examples of IPM in Africa and other developing countries. Two examples from Africa include one in Burkina Faso on irrigated rice and one in Madagascar, again on rice. The implementation of IPM in both of these projects appears to be partly in response to misuse of pesticides. As we have seen, IPM, even in its pesticide management form, is still a long way from becoming standard practice.

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Overall, it can be concluded that IPM in developing countries—despite the successes in Asia and Southeast Asia with irrigated rice—has not, after many attempts at implementation, had much success. In the next section we will explore this further by identifying a set of characteristics that encourage the adoption of IPM.

The Conditions Required for Successful IPM As illustrated in the previous pages, there is no doubt that the IPM philosophy can be put into practice, albeit with varying levels of emphasis and efficiency. There are examples where IPM has been shown to be both practical and very beneficial, particularly in terms of reducing pesticide use. It is, however, interesting to note that the same examples, mostly centered on cotton and irrigated rice, are often repeated. If one examines these examples, some clearly discernible patterns emerge. One could almost argue that they share a common profile, the elements of which are illustrated in Table 4.1. First, they typically center around a crop with a relatively high and stable value. Citrus fruits, apples, cotton, olives, tobacco, and ornamental flowers appear time and time again. There are relatively few examples with low-value crops such as sorghum and millet, even though these crops are important staples for many living in developing countries. Cereals, with the major exception of irrigated rice and, to a lesser extent, maize, are notable for their almost complete absence. The data in Tables 4.2 and 4.3 illustrate this point. Table 4.2 presents figures for the extent of IPM use on twelve major crops in the United States (IPM in this case is more likely to equate to its tactical rather than its strategic form). Relatively high-value crops (apples, tomatoes, cotton, and peanuts) tend to have the greatest adoption of IPM. These crops also tend to have the highest total applications of insecticide and hence have potential problems with pest resistance. Table 4.3 is the result of a literature search on crop protection publications since 1973, using "pest management" combined with the name of the crop as key words. Only sixteen crops account for 80 percent of all the publications on

Table 4.1

Profile of Favorable Conditions That Encourage IPM Adoption by Farmers

Component Prices Agro-ecosystems Pest complex Fanner support

Helpful Features High-value crop plus a stable market Stable prices for crop protection inputs Continuous cropping on the same piece of land Same crop grown over a wide area A small number of important pests Previous problems with intensive use of pesticides Good research/extension base

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Table 4.2

Extent of IPM Use, Crop Price, and Application of Insecticide for Twelve Major Crops in the United States (1986) Approximate % of Total Crop Area Under IPM

Annual or Perennial Crop

Price/unit ($/metric ton) 1987 U.S. data2

tomato citrus apple

83 70 65

a P P

510 190

54,752 28,458

cotton peanut rice sorghum

48 44 39 26

a a a a

1,419 617 143 47

13,924 3,069 359 1,691

maize potato wheat soybean alfalfa

20 16 15 14 5

a a a a a

53 86 71 162 64

50,763 6,411 320 811

Crop

—

Insecticide applied (metric tons a.i.), 1991 datab

—

Sources: G. R. Conway and J. N. Pretty. (1991). Unwelcome Harvest: Agriculture and Pollution. London: Earthscan. Price data come from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Statistics Board, Statistical Bulletin No. 903. Insecticide application data come from the U.S. National Agricultural Statistics Service. Figures have been rounded. Notes: a. Prices are the final marketing year average received by fanners. The price/unit for alfalfa is based on 1987 hay price; cotton price is for all cotton (upland and Amer-Pima); corn and sorghum prices are for grain; tomato price is for fresh market. b. Cotton refers only to upland cotton; wheat refers only to winter wheat; citrus includes oranges, grapefruits, tangelos, and tangerines.

pest management, and cotton and rice by themselves account for nearly a third of all publications. Again, note the emphasis on high-value crops in Table 4.3. Second, in the agro-ecosystems where IPM is typically applied the same crop is grown over large areas. The systems are also typically based on sole cropping (one crop on a piece of land), and the important pest complex is usually quite small. Indeed, for the most part the examples are based upon the extreme form of sole cropping—monoculture (same crop on a piece of land over a number of years). The classic examples, of course, are the tree crops (citrus fruits, apples, forest trees) and annual crops such as cotton and rice. Monoculture has a number of advantages for the farmer from the point of view of management but can lead to severe pest and disease problems. The typical response has been to apply pesticide as an antidote to these problems, but of course this greater use of pesticide leads to all of the problems outlined earlier, only with a vengeance! Indeed, it is perhaps ironic that those who have already gone through the trauma of the pesticide treadmill are those who appreciate best the advantages of

Making IPM Work

Table 4.3

Percentage of Publication Abstracts Since 1973 Referring to "Pest Management" for Different Crops

Percent of Publications Referring to "Pest Management"

Totals

95

Number of Crops

Crops

27

2

Cotton, rice

33

5

Apples, forest, maize, citrus fruits, soybeans

20

9

Potatoes, sorghum, wheat, tomato, tea, coffee, cowpeas, cassava, groundnuts

80

16

Note: Forest and citrus are generic terms and hence the proportion of publications may be underestimated.

IPM. In all of the case studies given earlier in this chapter, IPM was introduced only after the agro-ecosystem had almost collapsed through intensive use of pesticides. Third, many of the examples are located in developed countries. The United States and Canada in particular have many good examples of IPM. It is a reasonable assumption that the presence of a good, strong research and extension base—as well as the relatively stable markets within such countries—has helped with the implementation of IPM. Clearly, a combination of these factors can go a long way toward favoring the adoption of an IPM program. However, their relative IPMpromotion value may well be quite different. For example, a good research/extension base may contribute less toward favoring IPM adoption than the presence of a relatively simple agro-ecosystem based on monoculture over a wide area. A clue can perhaps be gleaned by looking at agro-ecosystems in which pest management has been strongly pushed and in which some of the elements outlined in the previous profile are present. A good example is field crop agriculture and the use of economic thresholds (ETs) for insect pests in the UK. Some of the ideal IPM conditions should prevail. 1. UK has a strong agricultural research base (including universities) 2. UK has a good extension network (Agricultural Development and Advisory Service, crop consultants, television, radio, magazines, etc.) 3. Farmers in the UK have access to a very wide range of crop protection technologies (including selective pesticides) 4. Crops are grown as sole crops and sometimes as monocultures for a few seasons

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5. The market is relatively stable (the UK being part of the European Union), and for a number of crops the farmers have a guaranteed price for their produce 6. Most field crops have relatively few important insect pests (e.g., oilseed rape has three or four insect pests that commonly limit yields, although others are present) 7. Insect pest targets have long been determined, and the information is freely available and easily obtained 8. The environment is relatively stable and predictable However, how many ETs exist for field crops in the UK? There are many action thresholds, often based on biological injury levels (BILs), but few examples of true economic thresholds that vary as crop and control costs change (see, for example, Mann et al., 1991). Indeed, how many farmers in the UK even follow the action thresholds as laid down, and how many use a combination of control technologies? The vast majority of farmers in the UK use pesticides for control of insects, diseases, and weeds. Although there has been much breeding for disease resistance, there has been no large-scale breeding for insect resistance because insecticides are so cheap relative to the value of the crop. However, there has been a strong push to encourage farmers to use insecticides in such a way as to avoid damaging the pest-natural enemy complex and to minimize effects on nontarget organisms. Recommendations include using selective insecticides where possible, not spraying headlands (Boatman and Sotherton, 1988), and leaving areas of crop unsprayed so they can act as havens for natural enemies (Thomas and Wratten, 1988). These could form part of an IPC program, but there are few studies on the relative adoption of unsprayed headlands and crop strips as a means of adopting an integrated control philosophy in arable fields in the UK. Various studies (Watt, Vickerman, and Wratten, 1984; Wratten and Mann, 1988; Wratten et al., 1990; Arthurton, 1995) suggest that many farmers in the UK prefer to spray pesticide at a certain crop growth stage (an "insurance" application) or when they happen to see the pests in their fields. Some farmers do rigorously adopt action thresholds, but they appear to be in a minority. For example, Arthurton (1995), after interviewing thirty-one farmers in Norfolk, concluded that although sixteen "generally used thresholds" for insect pests, only four of them "rigorously attempted to apply thresholds." The remaining fifteen "generally did not use thresholds," and indeed thirteen of these simply applied insecticide as part of a routine tank mix with other chemicals. The following quotations from some of the farmers interviewed illustrate their feelings about the use of thresholds: I'm on a mixed farm and life gets pretty complicated. All sorts of anomalies come into play, the weather is bad or I'm tied up with the

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silage, so I need to spray when I can and not necessarily when I should. I have 150 fields and that makes it impossible to get the timing exactly right, I can't be every where at once. . . . I tend to spray early and mop up any thing that appears after that. After all I like to sleep at night. As soon as you see them [mangold fly] they want to be done because they multiply swiftly and will destroy your crop. W h e n aphids arrive at the threshold a lot of damage can already be done, so I fix my own level, it's lower and safer. —Arthurton

(1995)

Better adoption rates of ETs have been reported among farmers, although there are often qualifiers. For example, in a study of the use of "economic thresholds" (closer in meaning to the action thresholds of this book) on sorghum in the United States, Merchant and Teetes (1994) found that the majority of farmers used them but that "some farmers and a majority of the private agricultural advisors did not follow recommended economic thresholds." The reasons given for this were: 1. The risks of following economic thresholds 2. Sampling uncertainty 3. Disagreement with existing economic thresholds It appears as if the conditions that prevail for field crops in a developed country like the UK, although in some ways amenable to IPM, prevent its widespread adoption even in its limited pesticide management form. Why should this be so? One could argue that the IPM methodology needs further refinement (e.g., better thresholds or means of pest identification and population monitoring) or that the farmers need more training and support. However, before prescribing an answer, we should examine the reasons UK farmers may not be adopting the current methodology. To begin with, a single farmer in the UK will not be working with just one high-value crop such as often forms the focus of many successful IPM programs. Typically he or she may grow four or five crops that vary in their relative value, perhaps in conjunction with the production of milk, beef, and mutton, forestry, or even off-farm activities such as recreation. Clearly, the farmer's effort and attention are spread over a range of activities, and time and money spent on monitoring insect pests have to compete with many other potential uses. The development of ETs as opposed to simpler action thresholds does entail a greater research cost because of the added dimension of price

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fluctuation. In addition, the farmers would be expected to follow this variation in threshold as well as monitor pest populations. In practice, research has concentrated on BILs, and thresholds have been kept more or less constant in the face of changes in crop value and the cost of inputs. Although the European Union has provided a relatively stable market, crop values have fluctuated significantly since the UK joined. Pesticide prices have also changed, although not necessarily in parallel with crop value. Figure 4.1, produced from data in Malham (1995), illustrates this point for three commonly used insecticides (Aphox, Dimethoate 40, and Metasystox) for controlling aphids in sugar beets and wheat in the UK. The lines represent the relative value of crop harvested and cost of insecticide applied per hectare (1982 is the "anchor" year, at 100 percent, to which all others have been related). The price data came from a large agro-chemical supplier in the East Anglia region of the UK, and the crop values are a product of mean yield/hectare and crop value/metric ton. As can be seen from Figure 4.1, the relative values of both sugar beets and wheat have fluctuated over ten years, even in the stable and controlled markets within which these crops are sold, and these fluctuations have not been closely matched by the cost of insecticide. The variation in insecticide cost has been driven by market factors, such as supplier and competitor prices, rather than variation in crop value, and this is not surprising given that the cost of insecticide is but a few percent of the crop value. The key point, however, is that the recommended application rates of the

Figure 4.1 Variation in Sugar Beet and Wheat Crop Value (£/ha) and in Pesticide Cost (£/unit) for Three Commonly Used Pesticides for Aphids relative value (%)

200

*

•

• X • • * • -i

150

— Sugar beet

X'

. * Tlhs.J-'- -x* "

100

x ' r

•Wheat

•

*

• -f*

Dimethoate 40

"+" Metasystox 55 " x " Aphox 82

83

84

85

86

87

88

89

90

91

92

Year Source: Graph based on data in S. M. Malham (1995). "A critical analysis of two economic thresholds for field crops in the United Kingdom—the gulf between theory and practice." B.S. dissertation. School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia, UK. Note: Application rates: Aphox = 280g/ha; Dimethoate 40 = 850 ml/ha; Metasystox = 420 ml/ha; ha = hectare; ml = milliliter; g = gram.

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insecticides for each crop have remained constant over the ten-year period in the face of this variation in crop value. Once a recommendation has been set by the insecticide manufacturer, then it has a tendency to remain, although there can be some slight modification to take into account new factors such as tank mixes with other products. A true ET should vary as crop value and cost of insecticide varies, but in this case there seems to be little point in varying the threshold because insecticide application is relatively cheap. A specific example of the consistency of thresholds in the UK is provided by an aphid pest (green peach potato aphid, Myzus persicae) of sugar beet. This aphid is a vector for an important virus disease of sugar beet, virus yellows. The current threshold employed for this pest in the UK (spray when there is one aphid for every four sugar beet plants) was developed in the late 1950s and came from a combination of field experimentation and surveys combined with experience and "common sense" (Malham, 1995). As can be imagined, the sugar beet market has changed much since the late 1950s, and even over the period 1982-1992 the yield and value of sugar beets and the cost of insecticide have changed dramatically, yet the threshold for M. persicae has remained the same throughout! This consistency of thresholds in the UK has been known for many years, and various efforts have been made to introduce an economic dimension to some of these action thresholds. One of the commonest approaches, at least in the UK, has been to develop microcomputer-based management models (Mann, Wratten, and Moore, 1989; Mann and Wratten, 1991), but at the time of writing these have not become widely used in spite of the power and relative cheapness of the technology and the relatively good computer literacy of the average farmer. The action thresholds for UK crops, as well as being stable with the passing of time, also differ widely in their perceived "robustness." Malham (1995) has provided figures from the Agricultural Development and Advisory (ADAS, the UK extension service) that show only 11 of the 129 thresholds developed by 1990 were considered to be robust (i.e., hard evidence exists that validates the threshold). The majority of thresholds (65 percent) were ranked by ADAS as "moderate," "poor," or "arbitrary" (Figure 4.2). Given the relatively sophisticated nature of the agricultural industry and support services in the UK, why have ETs not been developed or employed more widely? First, it can certainly be argued that the relative cheapness of pesticides in the UK has hindered the development of ETs. In the sugar beet and wheat examples given earlier, the cost of insecticide is such that even small increases in crop yield (typically only a few percent over an unprotected crop) will pay for its application. The second reason that has been expressed by some workers in this field is that farmers in the UK would not be able to handle or tolerate more

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Figure 4.2 The Robustness of Research That Determined Specific UK Thresholds for Insect Pests

H

Robust

•

R obust/good

•

Good

S3 Moderate

CO P o o r d 3 Arbitrary

Source: Based on S. M. Malham (1995). "A critical analysis of two economic thresholds for field crops in the United Kingdom—the gulf between theory and practice." B.S. disstertation. School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia, UK. Note: Robustness is ranked by ADAS, the UK extension service.

flexible thresholds. In other words, confusion would ensue if the thresholds were continually changing from month to month, or indeed from year to year, and farmers could lose faith in the research system that was responsible for developing the thresholds. The first of these arguments misses the central point of the need for ETs and indeed IPM. Even if pesticides are relatively cheap, the environmental desirability of limiting pesticide use should prevail. Third, insect pests are not as significant in UK field crops, and farmers rarely bother spraying for a particular pest more than once. Coupled to this is the fact that the crop landscape is diverse, and most fields have a rotation of some sort, even if one crop tends to predominate over a period. Together, these facts have probably resulted in a reduced incidence of pesticide resistance relative to the cotton, rice, and citrus agro-ecosystems found in the United States, South America, and Asia. Ironically, IPM may not be widely practiced in UK field agriculture partly because farmers never went through the pesticide treadmill nightmare. One could extend this argument further by considering so-called resource-poor farmers in developing countries. The conditions in this context can be far removed from those of farmers in developed countries (MacKay, Adalla, and Rola, 1993). The crops are often of relatively low value, and a single family may cultivate a number of these during a season. Unlike farmers in developed countries who sell virtually all of their produce, farmers in developing countries will retain some, if not most, of their produce for consumption while part may be sold to generate revenue. The markets in which the farmer has to sell may be very variable and

Making IPM Work

1 01

seasonal, with no equivalent of the Common Agricultural Policy to help cushion them. Farm areas are often quite small, typically ranging from 0.5 to 4 hectares, and off-farm sources of income are often very important. Indeed, the off-farm activities can be far more diverse than those typically employed by UK farmers. The research and extension base may be relatively weak, and disseminating information to farmers may not be straightforward. These farmers are also very unlikely to have access to portable microcomputers and training in order to be able to use management models. In addition to all of this, the cropping systems practiced are usually quite complex, revolving as they often do around intercropping (growing of more than one crop on a piece of land at the same time) as a way of minimalizing risk. Pesticides may be relatively expensive, and their cost may be a substantial proportion of or even exceed the value of the crop they are to protect. Application of the pesticide may typically have to be via a knapsack sprayer, which itself has to be purchased at great cost and maintained. The result in many cases is that there has been relatively little use of pesticides, except when a transient development project or government scheme has seen fit to greatly subsidize the cost. Except for special cases such as irrigated rice, the overall environment is clearly very different from the classic pattern for successful IPM. Despite its popularity and its prominence as the dominant paradigm in crop protection, there have been relatively few systematic and thorough reviews of the level of IPM implementation by farmers in both developed and developing countries (Wearing, 1988). Case studies of IPM abound in textbooks, but as we mentioned earlier, the same ones have a habit of reappearing. However, although there may be relatively few reviews of IPM implementation, many authors have pointed out that the extent of IPM adoption is disappointingly poor. Chapter 5 will examine this point in more depth, and review the reasons that are often given for poor adoption by farmers.

5 IPM: Forever New

IPM as a philosophy is by no means new. The ideas and concepts have been in circulation since the 1950s (if not before), and many of the classic case studies mentioned in Chapter 4 had their origin in the 1960s and 1970s. However, as a number of authors point out, the prevalent crop protection methods employed throughout the world are based on single control technologies (not even integrated). Even the tactical (pesticide management) approach to IPM has often been difficult to put into practice, and, as demonstrated in the previous chapter, relatively few economic thresholds are implemented even in developed countries, although there are many examples of the cruder action thresholds. Some have argued that because IPM is a philosophy, then it cannot be fully implemented because "the target itself is always changing" (Croft, 1985). If one takes the tactical-strategic IPM axis model employed in Chapter 2, this statement implies that the strategic end of the axis is continuously moving as the agro-ecosystem evolves. In contrast the "tactical" end of the axis is more stable simply because it is far less ambitious. Although we sympathize with this view, IPM is supposed to provide the basis for a practical approach to crop protection and not just a philosophy with appealing rhetoric. That the strategic end of the axis is in continuous movement may be true, but the desire to get there is not diminished as a result. It is this practical facet of IPM that opens it up to cold assessment in terms of whether it delivers what it promises. The debate is not about whether the contribution of IPM can be assessed, but how it should be assessed. One approach to assessing the contribution of IPM to agriculture is to measure its adoption by farmers. One can argue that IPM has to be viewed in terms of its relative benefit to society as a whole, especially in regard to the environment, but unless farmers practice IPM these benefits will not materialize. 103

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The best directed management program possible and the best trained personnel available are useless without grower adoption of programs. —Barfield and Stimac (1980) The real test of IPM technologies is whether or not farmers will use them. —Materia (1994) There are good examples of IPM in practice, as mentioned in Chapter 4, but the same ones have a tendency to be repeated in the literature. Indeed, virtually all of the "classical" case studies of IPM essentially refer to various scales of pesticide management rather than true IPM (i.e., they are more at the tactical end of the scale rather than the strategic). Many of the "IPM" success stories have more in common with IPC than real IPM. This has not gone unnoticed, as the following comment by Gruys (1982) illustrates. "A recent report, mentioning 20,000 ha of orchard under IPM in Europe, does not distinguish critically between rational chemical control, which is increasingly applied in several European countries, and truly integrated systems." Failure to distinguish pesticide management from real IPM is characteristic of much data on the rates of IPM adoption. However, even if we take IPM in its broadest sense, the literature is replete with many lamentations that IPM has not been more widely adopted by farmers. These calls frequently go hand in hand with analyses of the reasons for poor adoption, and these will be examined later. One of the most telling statements made about the poor adoption of IPM comes from Flint and van den Bosch with reference to the birthplace of IPM—the United States: Logic tells us that society should be rushing to adopt this better pest management strategy, but in fact it is not. Indeed, despite the success of a variety of programs globally and the enthusiastic endorsement of IPM by a number of the world's most respected pest control researchers and practitioners, the strategy's development and implementation have moved at a snail's pace. In California, for example, where much of the pioneering effort in IPM has occurred, the strategy is only utilized on about 20% of the cotton acreage, in a fraction of the deciduous fruit and citrus orchards, in only a handful of the communities and mosquito abatement districts, and not at all on the bulk of the agricultural acreage and in other areas of resource production. —Flint and van den Bosch (1981) However, this is by no means the only such example; remarks along a similar vein are legion and demonstrate a level of consistency from the 1970s to the 1990s. Although we have no wish to labor the point, the following quotations should illustrate the dilemma and allow readers to check this consistency for themselves.

IPM: Forever New

Few true IPM programs for agricultural pests are in effect. —Barfield and Stimac (1980) Very often integrated pest control has become a catch-word for all sorts of pest control activities, and this stems most probably from the fact that real practical examples are still rather limited. We have not yet reached the stage where it can be said that a great number of pests are permanently maintained below economic injury levels. —Brader (1980) Slow adoption of IPM in practice is a general phenomenon. —Gruys (1982) The chief preoccupation in IPM in recent years has been to close the gap between concept and practice. Progress has been disappointing. —Smith (1983) Agriculturalists have made progress in abilities to design relevant and more sustainable pest management strategies. Yet, there remain major discrepancies between the principles and practices of IPM. —Barfield, Cardelli, and Boggess (1987) IPM has received widespread acclaim since the 1950s as the only rational approach to providing long-term solutions to pest problems. Yet as early as 1965 the proponents of this concept began commentating on the slow rate of adoption of IPM by farmers. —Wearing (1988) IPM practices and systems, even when available and demonstrated to be effective, are far from universally adopted by growers and farmers throughout the United States. —Grieshop, Zalom, and Miyao (1988) This practice is a powerful tool for pest management but remains to be fully adopted by U.S. farmers. —Logan (1990), referring to the use of thresholds when applying pesticides Classical IPM . . . appears still to be largely at the research and development level. —Finch (1992), referring to IPM in European production Much research has been devoted to the development of integrated pest management in cereals. Many practical solutions ready to be applied have been offered but few have been accepted by the farmers. Why? —Bigler, Forrer, and Fried (1992) Despite numerous national and international programmes, such as those sponsored by the FAO in 1971, the IOBC in 1976 and the EC

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more recently, integrated pest control in olive groves in Italy has not lived up to initial expectations in terms of either development or general acceptance. —Cirio (1992) Since then [the 1970s], many different IPM practices have been developed for various pests and vegetable crops, but instances of successful implementation of systematic vegetable IPM programs on a wide scale are few. —Zehnder (1994) Despite the demonstrated economic and environmental benefits of IPM, persuading farmers to adopt IPM technology has frequently been difficult. —Merchant and Teetes (1994) One problem with IPM is the contrast presented between research and implementation. —Jeger (1995) There are many other parallel comments in this same vein, specifically with regard to developing countries: In developed countries, considerable research accomplishments have been reported, which have improved knowledge in various areas of IPC such as multiple pest interactions, economic thresholds, pest sampling techniques, management models, etc. A number of successful achievements at the farmer's level have also been obtained. In developing countries, however, the progress of IPC has not been comparable. In fact, only a few examples can be given where IPC has reached the farmer and has remained with him as a part of his production system. —Zelazny, Chiarappa, and Kenmore (1985) (IPC equates to IPM) IPM is recommended as the most appropriate alternative to a sole reliance on pesticides, but successful projects are very scarce. In papers on IPM and at meetings on the topic, disappointment is often expressed at the slow, if any, acceptance at farmer level of what are considered appropriate IPM strategies. —Schulten (1989a, 1989b) Unfortunately, our record on IPM in developing countries has not been very successful to date . . . The FAO global IPM program has found success elusive, ranging from cases of colossal failure to high success. —Maxwell (1990) As yet, however, few IPM programmes have made a lasting impact on farmer knowledge, attitudes or practice. —Matteson (1992), referring specifically to developing countries

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The concept of Integrated Pest Management (IPM), regarded as an ultimate management practice for the control of pests and diseases, has been known for over 30 years in the developed countries. Nevertheless, it is yet to be fully exploited in the developing countries, which in recent years have been clumping grounds for all kinds of pesticides. —Poswal, Akpa, and Alabi (1993) For all these reasons, farmers in developing nations have, by and large, been quick to adopt the use of pesticides. Have they been as quick to adopt IPM as their approach to the use of pesticides? Although there are no worldwide surveys of IPM adoption available to answer this question, the available evidence indicates that it is the tactic of pesticide use and not the philosophy of IPM that has gained ground in the Third World. —Barfield and Swisher (1994) Despite its many apparent benefits, IPM is still lacking in the majority of small-scale farmer cropping systems. —M'Boob (1994), referring to IPM in West Africa Impressive results have been achieved in biological control of cassava and mango mealybugs, but IPM development and its implementation in the major food and cash crops has progressed little, if at all. —Schulten (1994), referring to IPM in West Africa Pest management and/or control strategies are not yet available for many cropping systems, and where they do exist, methods are often uneconomic or otherwise inappropriate for adoption by the targeted beneficiaries, or they are environmentally unacceptable. —ODA (1994) IPM has not been widely adopted in Africa, although some successes have been achieved (cochineals in caf flour and sugar cane in Tanzania). —Thiam (1996) Set against the above quotations are others that proclaim the success of IPM, especially in developed countries, but these appear to be in a distinct minority and the same examples (particularly in cotton and rice) are brought up time and time again. Although this may sound rather discouraging, let it not be said that IPM is unique among agricultural innovations in its poor adoption by farmers. The history of introducing agricultural innovations in both developed and developing countries is replete with many examples of excellent research and innovation failing to be applied in the field. Even within crop protection, IPM is by no means the only example. Baliddawa (1991) says: "A lot of applied research results are accumulated by scientists working on research stations, institutes and universities on almost every aspect of pest control, but very little of it ever gets applied in the actual crop production process."

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However, when one examines individual technologies within crop protection, there are differences in the extent of adoption and the picture is patchy rather than uniform. There are, for example, numerous good examples of the adoption of pest-resistant varieties (McNamara and Morse, 1996) and, indeed, the use of pesticides. Specific biological control programs, although not required to be adopted by farmers, have also had great success (e.g., Herren, 1990). In contrast, IPM is not a technology but a philosophy—a view of how crop protection should be approached—and poor adoption of IPM is not necessarily the same as poor adoption of some of its ingredients. For example, farmers may well adopt a pest- or diseaseresistant variety without necessarily wishing to adopt the philosophy of IPM. They may well slot new components into an existing system to see how they perform without wishing to conform to some external view as to how they should manage the pest population based on externally derived and detailed ecological knowledge. Even so, given that IPM is an ideal, and given that it has received a lot of emphasis by funding agencies, among others, it is reasonable to ask why the dominance of IPM as a paradigm has not been matched by a dominance in practice. Why is IPM always regarded as emerging? Beets (1990), for example, nearly thirty years after the advent of IPM, makes the following statement with reference to a smallholder farming system context: "Integrated pest and disease management is likely to be very important in the future and it can be seen as an important development intervention." These calls are repeated time and time again, yet there seems to be little progress in the majority of farming systems. Even if one assumes, as many do, that IPM is nothing more than a basic pesticide management program, the poor adoption is somewhat worrying. More worrying still is the fact that some of the classic success stories of IPM that may provide some succor have collapsed for a variety of reasons. Holl, Daily, and Ehrlich (1990) discuss two IPM success stories, largely based on cotton, from Peru and Nicaragua. In both countries IPM (largely in its pesticide management form) was widely adopted, and indeed the Cañete Valley in Peru must probably be the most commonly quoted IPM success story in the literature (summaries can be found in Debach, 1974, and van Emden, 1974), but the success has not endured. As mentioned earlier, the lack or slow rate of IPM adoption on a wide scale in many farming systems has been noted for some years now, and naturally this has invited explanation from a number of authors. Indeed, and perhaps very telling, is the fact that there are probably more detailed analyses of the factors that hinder IPM adoption than there are thorough analyses of the extent of IPM adoption. Even in developed countries with a long history of IPM research and vast resources with which to promote it, there have been persistent problems with adoption. For example, in 1992 a National IPM Forum in the United States attempted to analyze the

IPM: Forever New

1 09

reasons for poor adoption of IPM, but, ironically, most of the participants were from the public sector rather than the very people at which IPM was targeted (i.e., the farmers). Once this was noticed, a number of regional workshops were held to get farmer input, and once asked their opinion the farmers often came up with reasons the experts had not expected (Alms, 1996). The reasons given for poor adoption are often varied, numerous, and complex. Smith (1983), Goodell (1984), Stoner, Sawyer, and Shelton (1-986), Bottrell (1987), Wearing (1988), Glass (1992), and NRI (1992) provide some good summaries. The reasons commonly given for poor adoption of IPM are as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Influence of the pesticide industry Not enough research Poor availability of information Poor extension and farmer training Conservative (unresponsive) fanners Need for further technical breakthroughs Lack of government support (policy and financial) Lack of appreciation of farmers' problems

To some extent these categories overlap. For example, lack of funds and the pesticide lobby are typically blamed for the inadequate research or extension base. Probably the most common explanation for poor adoption of IPM is to blame the pesticide industry and their influence on governments and their agencies—the so-called pesticide lobby. Because this is typically presented as the major factor limiting IPM use, it will be dealt with as a separate section. The other factors will be covered in a later section.

Explaining the Poor Adoption of IPM: Pesticides Rule Pesticides still represent one of the most popular approaches to crop protection worldwide. According to Escalada and Heong (1993): "In many developing countries, farmers generally view the use of chemicals as the most effective and convenient method to control weeds, insect pests and diseases." Indeed, promotion of pesticide use has formed part of many development projects financed by the developed world. Development aid projects in the agricultural and public health categories often require large-scale use of pesticides. —Grant

(1988)

The expansion of pesticide use in the Third World is an integral part of the development process. It is sanctioned and promoted by development agencies, and financed by First World loans. The industry is

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—Adams (1990)

The popularity of pesticide use by both farmers and development workers, even though it is sometimes described as irrational, has been presented as probably the major obstacle to the widespread adoption of IPM (Bottrell, 1987). Gooch (1993) adds: "The one big thing stopping greater IPM use in developing countries is the massive vested interest in the Western chemical companies in selling expensive products, which are continually being updated, to farmers who can ill afford them. Roll on IPM." Since the advent of organic pesticides in the 1940s, formal research in crop protection has been dominated by the pesticide companies (Stoner, Sawyer, and Shelton, 1986). For the most part these are large multinationals that deal in pesticides as a part of their overall strategy, which may also include the manufacture of fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, and industrial chemicals. The research into pesticides does not just stop with the chemicals themselves, but often includes the whole application technology (i.e., the sprayers). Ingenious methods of applying pesticides have been developed, including the use of electrical charges to ensure that the spray droplets only attach to the crop and do not drift far (Mathews, 1979). Pesticides may represent a relatively small portion of total turnover (Corbet, 1981). If there was no profit in pesticides companies would not make them, and if governments and farmers did not buy the products there would be no profit. The development of a pesticide is an expensive and time-consuming process, and naturally the pesticide companies involved are interested primarily in maximizing profit rather than being altruistic. Given this motive, it is not unreasonable of them to exert pressure in order to maintain their markets, and vast amounts of money are spent on advertising and pesticide promotion in both developed and developing countries. According to Corbet (1981): "Among the most formidable obstacles to a general understanding of the science of IPM is the commercial interest of companies in marketing pesticides." Without legislation to curtail the activities of these companies, it is difficult to envisage them lifting the pressure. Indeed, Corbet (1981) called for such legislation as a necessity for the success of IPM. "In countries where commercial interests favour the increased use of pesticides, the lack of appropriate (restraining) legislation can be seen as a barrier to the adoption of IPM." An example of such action is the banning of fifty-seven pesticide compounds by the Indonesian government (Waibel, 1993). However, there is some contradiction in the fact that such restraint, however welcome to many, would tend to go against the grain for many Western democracies, which continually advocate market liberalization (often as part of an overall structural

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adjustment program) to less developed nations. When one considers the fact that most of these multinationals are located in developed countries, then a conflict of interest is certainly possible. Aid donors have typically compromised by encouraging nonpesticide-based methods of crop protection and at the same establishing guidelines for the purchase of pesticides. The World Bank, for example, employs the following criteria for the selection and use of pesticides in projects that it finances: (a) They must have negligable adverse human health effects. (b) They must be shown to be effective against the target species. (c) They must have minimal effect on nontarget species and the natural environment. The methods, timing, and frequency of pesticide application are aimed to minimize damage to natural enemies. Pesticides used in public health programs must be demonstrated to be safe for inhabitants and domestic animals in the treated areas, as well as for personnel applying them. (d) Their use must take into account the need to prevent the development of resistance in pests. —World Bank (1996)

Not only do companies spend money on pesticide publicity and promotion, but also governments and aid agencies often subsidize the cost of pesticides, thereby making them more economically attractive than they would otherwise be (Bottrell, 1984; Holl, Daily, and Ehrlich, 1990; Waibel, 1993). However, in many developed countries crop prices are subsidized so the relative cost of pesticides is very low (Malham, 1995). One explanation for pesticide subsidies may be a feeling among policymakers that higher rates of pesticide use equate to "progress" (Matteson, Altieri, and Gagne, 1984). Farmers may also feel peer pressure to use pesticides, according to Escalada and Heong (1993): "A farmer who uses pesticides, even if the use is not warranted, is often perceived by his peers as up-to-date." Elimination of pesticide subsidies can help the adoption of IPM, at least in its tactical (i.e., pesticide management) form. This has been beautifully illustrated for rice in Indonesia, and this example is now regarded by many as one of the best examples of IPM to date (Stone, 1992). It should be borne in mind that the agro-chemical companies have not in general been antagonistic to the central idea of using pesticides more wisely and indeed have been instrumental in developing action thresholds (typically based on biological injury levels). It is difficult to find an open rejection by a pesticide company of the economic threshold concept or even of the idea of integrating pesticides with other technologies. These companies may not put much money into researching IPM, but where are the widespread examples of their preventing others from doing such research? Indeed, there may be a heavy dose of irony here because one of the reasons that IPM has achieved the predominance it has is due in part to

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its acceptance by industry. Toms (1993) concurs: "Support for IPM in agriculture is a policy of the multinational pesticide companies." One should also bear in mind that not all agro-ecosystems in developing countries have been subjected to such a pesticide barrage. Much of subsistence farming in sub-Saharan Africa is based almost entirely on lowcost approaches to crop protection with little use of pesticides relative to developed countries, although, unlike in some developed countries, it is on the increase (Kaaya, 1994). This is not to say that farmers would not use pesticides if they could afford them, but costs are simply too prohibitive unless there is a substantial government subsidy.

Explaining the Poor Adoption of IPM: Other Factors

Failures or problems with IPM are typically put down to problems with extension and research. The traditional model linking research with farmers is based on the so-called transfer of technology (TOT), with extension playing the role of message carrier between researchers and farmers (Chapter 2). Researchers develop the ideas and techniques that farmers should apply, and the extension service makes this information available to farmers and encourages their adoption. Feedback from farmers, in the sense of fine-tuning, is passed to the researchers via the extension service. Therefore extension acts as the central pivot of the whole system, and if farmers fail to adopt a package such as IPM that has been developed by the researchers, then the extension service is an obvious target. Holl, Daily, and Ehrlich (1990) say: "While continued research is necessary to improve and update IPM techniques, the failure of most IPM programs can be traced to a deficiency in extension services—particularly education and farmers' awareness of IPM technology" (emphasis added). The same comments about extension also appear when inadequate adoption in developed countries is considered. Compare the previous quotation with the following, in which Bigler, Forrer, and Fried (1992) refer to IPM in cereals production in Europe: "Extension services, specialized in plant protection, should play a key role in implementation of integrated pest management. However, they do not have enough manpower, so they cannot take care sufficiently of informing and guiding the farmers." The need for effective training of farmers and others has also been highlighted by Thiam (1996): "There is no doubt that training has to be the backbone of any IPM policy, especially with regard to farmers Serious training is needed, not only of farmers, but also of people working for the popularisation services, researchers and officials at the Ministries of Agriculture working on crop protection." For the most part, however, the critiques are sympathetic because extension is often seen as the poor relation of research—attracting less funding

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and prestige (Goodell, 1984; Holl, Daily, and Ehrlich, 1990). Policymakers in developing countries are seen by some as trading off research and extension rather than seeing them as complementary (Goodell, 1984). Even researchers have not escaped criticism for poor adoption of IPM. It has been suggested that they lack training in "holistic thinking" and that they are too narrowly focused within disciplines (Altieri, 1987). To some, the poor infrastructure of the whole research-extension system is to blame, and this is sometimes specifically located in the poor availability of information to all involved. Lack of information is also an important constraint in the development and implementation of IPM programmes. Documentation centres of national research stations in developing countries are often poorly equipped. Direct access to computer data bases in developed countries is limited because of economic constraints and poor telecommunications. —Van Huís, Meerman, and Takken (1990) The lack of IPM information which could be used by farmers and by extension workers is still a major constraint in many countries. —NRI (1992) Most West African countries lack the required plant protection research, extension and training infrastructures to carry out adequate IPM work. —M'Boob (1994) Researchers and extension workers are not the only groups who are blamed for poor adoption of IPM. Farmers also come in for a fair degree of criticism: Widespread gaps in the knowledge of farmers and unfavourable attitudes of farmers toward rational methods of pest management impede the sustained adoption of IPM. —Escalada and Heong (1993) Farmers prefer their traditional practices and are resistant to change. —Misari et al. (1994), part of a list of major constraints on IPM in Nigeria Despite knowledge of the biology, life-tables, population dynamics, crop injury thresholds, and control techniques of the major target species, however, farmers still find IPM instructions hard to follow. —El Titi and Landes (1990), referring to limited success of introducing IPM in European agriculture. There have been attempts to analyzes "farmer intransigence" further, and various suggestions have been put forward, at least for farmers in

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developed countries such as the United States. A common suggestion is that adoption of IPM is linked to trust, or more precisely risk taking, and this itself is linked to education. IPM users were more likely to be younger, better educated and have less farm experience than non-users. —Kovach and Tette (1988), referring to New York apple producers Some growers seem reluctant to entrust their crop to a program in which they lack experience or confidence. Most growers are older, nearing retirement, and are reluctant to change. Younger growers, who would more likely be receptive to new ideas, are not entering agriculture in the mid-South. —Aselage (1994), referring to adoption of IPM in the mid-South region of the United States

However, not every study has found a link between IPM use and farmer age and education (e.g., Grieshop, Zalom, and Miyao, 1988; Merchant and Teetes, 1994), and there have been other suggestions, including land ownership, type of enterprise, and previous experience with IPM (Grieshop, Zalom, and Miyao, 1988). One of the most interesting suggestions is that IPM "breaks with tradition" in that pest control is no longer a "private matter, used by individual farmers in competition with each other," but instead requires cooperation (Stoner, Sawyer, and Shelton, 1986). As mentioned earlier, a common theme in developing countries has been to view farmers as conservative and resistant to change. This lamentation is by no means restricted to IPM, and similar comments have been made regarding many other agricultural innovations that are brought in from outside. However, are they really so resistant to change? There is now a wealth of literature that shows that farmers are far from being the "conservative" and "resistant" people they are often painted as being. Indeed, there are many examples illustrating the inventiveness and vast indigenous knowledge possessed by many farmers in developing countries. Excellent examples are provided by Matteson, Altieri, and Gagne (1984); Chambers, Pacey, and Thrupp (1989); and Richards (1985). Traditional farmers are much less conservative innovators than many agricultural development planners believe. Their farming methods have benefited from centuries of systematic experimentation that has adapted them exceptionally well to local conditions. This includes the development of many traditional methods of crop protection. —Matteson, Altieri, and Gagne (1984)

Farmers (like many of us) may be loathe to take unnecessary risks, and if IPM is going to introduce such risks, then surely the problem is with IPM, not the farmers. We will return to this theme later, but for now we

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feel that the general approach of blaming the farmers for poor uptake of IPM has all the hallmarks of being an all too easy way out. We feel that Pimbert (1991) is absolutely right when he says: "Rather than blame farmers' ignorance or farm level constraints for the non-adoption of IPM technology, a reversal of explanation points to deficiencies in the technology and the very processes that generated it." On a more general level, appeals are often made to the government for more support (financial and otherwise) for IPM. In some cases people blame government for not providing a conducive atmosphere for IPM, whereas in other cases people complain about cash shortages. A primary constraint to development of vegetable IPM programs is the lack of funds for research and implementation. —Zehnder (1994) Another impediment to IPM is lack of adequate funding. —Kaaya

(1994)

The inherent complexity of IPM has sometimes been pointed out as a factor limiting its adoption (see, for example, Grieshop, Zalom, and Miyao, 1988). It is far more complicated to develop and implement an IPM programme than to rely on chemical control. —van Lenteren, Minks, and de Ponti (1992)

Wearing (1988) presents the results of a survey of IPM researchers which suggests that 67 percent of those interviewed recognized that the complexity of IPM is a major factor limiting its implementation. Although there are calls for simplification, the major solution put forward is usually better education and training of farmers, scientists, extension workers, policymakers and even the public. Indeed, education and training, be it specifically on IPM or in a general sense, are factors that turn up in various guises when poor adoption of IPM is discussed. In some cases the emphasis has been upon the education and training of farmers, whereas in others the stress has been laid upon the need to retrain researchers and planners (Jeger, 1995). It is interesting that many of the calls for better farmer training as part of an IPM program inevitably tend to focus on safe and effective use of pesticides—the tactical or pesticide management approach to IPM. A good example of this emphasis is provided by Whitaker (1993): "Without implementing education and training programmes to support appropriate safe and effective use of pesticides, standards in pesticide use will not improve, and IPM will not become a reality." It is interesting to note the tendency to avoid putting forward solutions to the inherent complexity of IPM beyond calling for more research (and

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funding), training, or a simplification of some component of IPM, such as the use of thresholds and sampling. Litsinger (1993) sees this complexity as a challenge rather than as a problem: "Integration of pest management tactics at the farming systems level should not be shied away from because of the systems complexity per se . . . Frustrations expressed by some at the intricacies of multipest interactions, control tactics and integration of IPM at the farming system level should be taken as an opportunity to analyze them." But who is to benefit from this challenge and the "opportunity to analyze"? An additional factor is that crop protection research tends to be vertical in nature (i.e., on component technologies) rather than horizontal (i.e., between component technologies). There is much research on pesticides, biological control, and pest resistant varieties but relatively little research on linking these components together (see Figure 5.1). As we mentioned earlier, some partly blame the researchers themselves, suggesting that they lack training in "holistic thinking" and that they are too narrowly focused within disciplines (Altieri, 1987). However, it has often been stated that the pressures on scientists (the "publish or perish syndrome" described by Brunner, 1994) forces them to specialize quite narrowly. In contrast, the development of IPM programs requires extensive research across control technologies by a team of scientists and socioeconomists who can bring their many skills to bear, and this more horizontal approach may indeed be more difficult in practice, especially given the site- and time-specific nature Figure 5.1 Vertical and Horizontal Research Efforts in Crop Protection

companies chemists engineers

Pesticides

governments/agencies biologists

plant breeders agronomists

Biocontrol

Plant resistance

farmers agronomists

Cultural methods

TECHNOLOGY GROUP Notes: Research efforts tend to be vertical within disciplines rather than across discipline borders. Dotted arrows represent the interdisciplinary effort required for integrated control and IPM.

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of IPM. This point has been made by others, and will be returned to in Chapter 6. IPM R&D institutions have not been very good at developing IPM strategies. The reason is quite simple: their structure and rewards system preclude it. —Barfield and Swisher (1994) A further point is that IPM projects require a manager, or managers, who can organize, direct, coordinate, and plan. As pointed out by Dent (1991), the training of scientists rarely includes courses in management. The broad scope of IPM programs inevitably requires that scientists from many disciplines work together—the often-quoted and elusive interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches. Many natural scientists will not possess the skills required to do this because most of their work and training has been very specific and insular. The following quotations summarize the situation: Even though we shared a common philosophy and much of altruistic attitude from the onset, it took our team some two full years to really learn how to co-operate effectively. —Barfield, Cardelli, and Boggess (1987)

If a realistic evaluation is made of the management and organisational needs of IPM it will be realised that truly integrated pest management programmes are not yet a feasible option. —Dent (1991) Given all of these problems and the presence of powerful forces seeking to promote one type of control technology (i.e., pesticides), could it not also be argued that IPM has disadvantages that make its applicability in many circumstances problematic? The case studies given in Chapter 4 certainly suggest that IPM (at least in its tactical form) can work provided the conditions are right, but maybe the key lies in those conditions. If they are not amenable to IPM, then it will not be adopted on a wide scale no matter how much force is used. The key problem, we believe, revolves around a lack of appreciation of farmers' problems. Perhaps surprisingly, relatively few IPM specialists have identified this as a factor. The following quotation dates from the mid-1980s. Of all the factors that have retarded the development and application of IPC [IPM] in Third World countries, however, one has emerged as the most important: the lack of communication with the farmer and the lack of appreciation of his or her problems. —Zelazny, Chiarappa, and Kenmore (1985)

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Years later we meet echoes of the same criticism: Why has there been so little implementation of IPM? Perhaps the single most important factor has been the overly academic approach adopted by many of its advocates, who support the basic philosophy but have not implemented IPM in actual field programmes. In practice the outcome of their work has often been unacceptable or unmanageable for the farmer and the local advisory service. —NRI (1992) Past experience seems to indicate that in many instances, the development of technological packages has failed to take account of realities in the field and the true needs of the farmer. —Kaaya (1994) Ironically, the answer has typically been to subsume the needs of the farmer within IPM; whether IPM should be the way forward is not questioned. For example, just after the above quotation from Zelazny, Chiarappa, and Kenmore (1985), we find the following: "Only through this type of understanding and through better communication is it, in fact, possible to ensure that the farmer will absorb the IPC [IPM] process and utilize it in crop production." Although these concerns are well meant, as we will discuss later in more depth, a true communication with the farmer and an appreciation of his or her problems should not be based on an a priori assumption of the answers. Clearly there are many reasons given for the poor adoption of IPM by farmers, and views on the relative importance of the constraints varies from author to author. However, the response by most is typically to call for the alleviation of these specific constraints, for example, by requesting more funding of research. It is also interesting to note how developments in other fields are taken up by IPM supporters as providing the breakthrough needed for IPM to become widespread. There are two excellent examples of this—the recent developments in biotechnology and the use of computer support systems.

Biotechnology to the Rescue? Ironically, the latest cry of joy surrounds the contentious area of biotechnology, specifically genetic engineering. Biotechnology is a generic term that encompasses many techniques (Morse, 1995), and for that reason there are potential implications for many areas of crop protection (Whitten

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11 9

and Oakeshott, 1990 and 1991). However, the main hope for IPM is largely based on the use of genetic engineering techniques, or more accurately the recombinant DNA technologies. Recombinant DNA technologies will probably provide the most diverse range of opportunities to develop new strategies for the control of insect pests. —Whitten and Oakeshott (1990, 1991) Advances in genetic engineering offer great hope for IPM schemes. —Food 2000 (1987) Genetic engineering is often mentioned as a means of helping to generate insect-resistant plant varieties. Evans and Scarisbrick's (1994) remarks referring to oil seed rape (OSR) summarize the feelings of many. "In terms of integrated management of OSR pests, the most likely breakthrough in the near future is the use of genetically engineered crops to confer resistance via the inclusion of genes expressing B. thuringiensis toxins, cowpea trypsin inhibitor or secondary plant metabolites." The cry of joy surrounding the advent of biotechnology applied to agriculture is not unique to IPM, but has also been heard from those calling for sustainable agriculture, within which IPM is often promoted as a sustainable form of crop protection. According to Schneiderman and Carpenter (1990): "Unless the whole world goes back to farming, biotechnology is our best hope for sustainable agriculture. And it seems to have arrived just in time to do some good." However, there is a very active debate surrounding genetic engineering, and some argue that engineered resistance could have negative impacts similar to the use of pesticides. It is not just IPM supporters who hail the onset of genetically engineered resistance; genetic engineers also use IPM as a way of adding a "green" label to their products—an example of symbiotic labeling perhaps. Hilder and Hamilton (1994) provide an example of this: "It is frequently stated that transgenic crops with enhanced resistance will be used within integrated pest management (IPM) programmes, the acronym sometimes appearing as a talisman to ward off any remaining criticism of the technology." There is also much irony in the hope that IPM will benefit from a technology that is largely under the control of the same multinationals that produce pesticides and that may generate products having negative environmental impacts similar to those of pesticides. As stated by Gould: One of the tenets of IPM involves using the ecologically least disruptive tactic that can limit economic loss. The problem here is that highly resistant cultivars will cause the same selection pressure for

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pest adaptation whether the pest density is high or low. Some pests that outbreak sporadically may adapt to a widely planted resistant cultivar before the resistance factor has ever been useful in reducing economic losses due to the pest. —Gould

CÍ 988)

Hauptli et al. (1990) suggest that genetic engineering could encourage chemical (including pesticide) usage: "A major area of concern is the possibility that the biotechnology industry will produce new crop cultivars tailor-made to require the use of specific chemicals during the production cycle, thereby increasing the overall use of chemicals in agriculture." These concerns have also been combined with a cooler response, from a number of authors, to the contribution that biotechnology can make to IPM relative to other technologies. Genetic engineering is still in its infancy and the expectations for it are great. A number of useful products will undoubtedly result from the enormous resources being applied to this subject. However, more lasting progress in ecologically sound pest management and sustainable agriculture will result from agroecological research focused on redesigning the structure and operation of agricultural ecosystems. —Luna

and House

(1990)

Indeed, a survey of extension entomologists in the United States by Allen and Rajotte (1990) suggested that biotechnology was not viewed as being the major influence on IPM between 1989 and 2000, although it was seen as being important (see Table 5.1). There is no doubt that biotechnology will make a contribution to crop protection, but is it really at a stroke going to make IPM more impleTable 5.1

Relative Importance of Pest Management Technologies

Pest Management Technology Scouting and thresholds Pheromone technology Plant resistance to insects Modeling Biotechnology Growth regulators Biological control Cultural control Legal controls Synthetic pesticides

Percentage change in respondents indicating "very important" 51.4 46.8 45.6 39.6 35.2 30.1 25.4 7.1 0.2 -37.0

Source: Adapted from W. A. Allen and E. G. Rajotte. (1990). "The changing role of extension entomology in the IPM era." Annual Review of Entomology 35: 379-397. Note: The numbers represent a change over the period from before 1970 to 1989-2000 in the percentage of extension entomologists questioned who regarded the technology as "very important" for IPM.

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mentable or indeed solve all of our pest control problems? Bottrell (1987) says no: "It is a mistake to assume that biotechnology will ever permanently solve pest problems." There has been a great deal of hype surrounding biotechnology. However, given the fact that many other new and powerful technologies arose during the thirty-year life of IPM (e.g., information technology) and yet widespread implementation of IPM appears as elusive as ever, this hype seems a bit like wishful thinking. Computers to the Rescue? The information-intensive nature of IPM has led automatically to the application of computer technology almost as night follows day. IPM's information-intensive nature provided an environment to exploit computer technology.

—Brunner (1994)

This obvious linkage probably explains why the application of computer-based systems to IPM is almost as old as the first definitions of IPM. Examples of such systems were developed in the early 1970s, and an early summary is provided by Welch (1984). Applications are essentially of three types (Edwards-Jones, 1992): 1. Diagnostics: Computers are used to store information that managers can recall easily. In essence, this type of system is a database or library, with the advantage of extensive cross-referencing (i.e., the user can easily switch between related articles and topics). 2. Treatment prescription: The computer can run complex models that help predict the best time to apply pesticide or other control technology. In its simplest form, the model operates on rules such as the following: IF pest = X, THEN apply pesticide Y at rate Z This type of program is ideally suited to the use of thresholds. Indeed, if costs of crop and application are included it could provide a convenient basis for implementing economic thresholds. 3. Strategy development: This is a much more complex approach in which computer programs are used to model a complex system and provide recommendations for management or allow what-if analysis. There are numerous examples of all three approaches to the use of computer systems in crop protection (see, for example, various chapters in Norton and Mumford, 1993, and Jeger, 1995). An early example of the

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first category is provided by Croft, Howes, and Welch (1976). In the second category there are models designed to help control aphid pests on cereals in Europe (Reinink, 1986; Mann and Wratten, 1991). An interesting development has been the growth of IPM on the Internet World Wide Web (WWW). The amount of IPM material on the Internet is already vast and growing rapidly, and includes examples of all three types of computer package described above. Those with a suitable computer, software, and modem can access these packages, often for no cost other than that of using a telephone line and subscription. Addresses of IPM sites can be found in MacRae (1996). Because IPM is knowledgeintensive, the Internet provides an almost ideal way of handling and utilizing the knowledge, and there is no doubt that it will become an important source for those involved in IPM research and implementation. As MacRae (1996) points out: "The value of the WWW to IPM as both an information system and decision aid is growing and its future usefulness will be limited only by WWW developers' imagination." However, although the development of computer packages for IPM has received a great deal of attention and backing by industry, they have not yet gained wide acceptance. Others have drawn similar conclusions. A survey conducted by Wearing (1988) asked a number of people in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe involved in crop protection research and implementation about the factors that contribute to crop protection decisionmaking. Computer-based information was deemed to have had "little overall impact" on crop protection decisionmaking, at least at that time. Poor adoption of computer-based packages in IPM has been noted by others: Although more KBS [knowledge-based systems] have been developed for pest management than for other subject areas, the reported uptake rate of these systems still appears to be very low. -Edwards-Jones (1992) It is perhaps surprising that the uptake of these systems has not become more widespread as pest management becomes more complex and decision support systems can provide a means of handling this increased complexity easily and at reasonable cost. —Knight (1995)

Given that pest management is knowledge-intensive and that computers offer many advantages in handling knowledge, this low uptake does indeed appear to be very surprising. For example, Welch (1984) confidently (and reasonably) stated that "these [computer] systems form the environment within which IPM delivery will take place in the future." However, more than ten years later, and with substantial development in microcomputer technology and software, this has simply not materialized. Admittedly,

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1 23

the presence of IPM sites on the Internet is relatively new, but computer packages have been available to farmers and others for some time. Edwards-Jones (1992) and Knight (1995) suggest a number of reasons for this relatively poor uptake of computer systems in IPM: 1. Many of the systems were developed for teaching or research in universities and colleges with no plans to introduce them as practical tools for pest management. This has become an important area, especially with the current popularity of computer education (Jeger, 1995). 2. Few agricultural researchers have experience in developing software, and few programmers have the necessary agricultural knowledge to develop a package that will be of practical benefit to farmers. In other words, there is a "skill gap." 3. The programs have not been developed in cooperation with farmers and advisers, and hence do not address their concerns. 4. There are psychological and cultural barriers against using computers as tools in crop protection. This is summed up in the following quotation: Farmers appear to prefer to receive advice from another human being rather than from a computer. -Edwards-Jones (1992) 5. Government sees the development of computer-based systems as being too "near market" for it to fund, and development in this area is left to private enterprise. 6. Many of the programs were developed by academics with little or no knowledge of marketing. Although these points make a great deal of sense, it is interesting to note that they are not in themselves insurmountable. Skill gaps can be closed by a team of people with the necessary skills working together—the very type of multidisciplinary approach that is invoked time and time again as the basis for a true IPM program. Similarly, although the UK may have a particular problem in terms of government funding and academics may not be very skilled in marketing, there have been examples of commercial interest in the development of these packages—but again the uptake by farmers was not particularly good. If the demand was there then private enterprise would quickly develop such packages, perhaps in partnership with academics, and government funding would be irrelevant. The issue is more the absence of demand than the lack of government funding. Indeed, of the reasons given, the fourth appears to be the most compelling—a bias against the use of machines for this sort of activity and a

1 24

IPM: Forever New

preference for advice from another human being. As a crop consultant in the United States has pointed out: Despite all the sophisticated information delivery systems available today, the hands-on, one-on-one, field-by-field service provided by trained professionals is by far the most effective method for helping a farmer adopt new management systems in response to new information. —Alms (1996) There are other points not covered in the previous list that are also important. First and foremost is the assumption that farming has to work at an optimal level, depending, of course, upon how this is defined in any one context. This assumption is beautifully highlighted in the following quotation: Despite the availability of extension advice in most Western countries, many farmers continue to operate sub-optimally. A more efficient extension service might be achieved if routine advice was provided by KBS direct to farmers, and human advisers were only consulted in unusual or complex circumstances. —Edwards-Jones (1992) The assumption that farmers are trying to achieve an optimal level of management is a point that will be returned to later, particularly for resource-poor farmers in developing countries. It is a big assumption, and one that is often made by agricultural scientists but that ignores the fundamental and self-evident fact that farmers are people with lives to lead. Farmers may have many priorities, some of which will lie entirely outside agriculture, let alone the specifics of crop protection. Consequently, their concept of optimal may be very different from that of a scientist. It is true that computer technology has advanced rapidly in recent years, and no doubt this advance will continue. It is also probable that the Internet will make IPM information much more widely available than it has been, and one can expect an increasing number of people to take advantage of this. For example, the U.S. Agency for International Development will spend U.S.$15 million improving access to the Internet in twenty African countries between 1996 and the turn of the century. Although the increased availability of information will help IPM research, will such technology really improve the rate of adoption of IPM in developing countries? After all, if the use of such systems by farmers in developed countries, with all of their advantages, has been relatively poor, it is difficult to envisage them being used in small-scale agriculture in the tropics. Also, much of the IPM material made available through the use of computer packages relates far more to developed countries than developing ones. For example, in June 1996 the vast majority of IPM information on the Internet was related to the United States and western Europe. One

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can expect material relevant to developing countries to increase, but it is doubtful that farmers there will be in a position to access it for the foreseeable future. Although the use of computer packages has proved beneficial within IPM research and education, its impact on the adoption of IPM by farmers in developed countries has been limited due to a range of factors, and it is difficult to envisage that such a technology will dramatically improve the rate of IPM adoption in developing countries. More IPM One interesting aspect of the IPM literature is that the recognition of major constraints on the adoption of IPM often appears alongside unquestioning calls for its wider adoption. The result is an intriguing illustration of the attraction of an ideal beyond more worldly considerations. A good example is provided by Beets (1990), who discusses the need for IPM in smallholder farming systems in the tropics. On the one hand, Beets calls for more IPM and acknowledges that IPM will be accorded a "high priority in development," but on the other the author accepts that funding will form a "major constraint" in developing countries and may limit the adoption of IPM for "many years to come." The author does not raise the question that, given such severe constraints, why should a "high priority" be given to the adoption of IPM in the first place? Are other approaches to crop protection besides knowledge-hungry IPM more realistic in the circumstances? Because of the emphasis on IPM and the exhaustive discussions that have taken place regarding the reasons for its limited use in many circumstances, both in developed and developing countries, it is reasonable to ask why these problems have not been solved by now. Even the much simpler pesticide management approach to IPM has not yet reached its full potential, let alone the far more complex strategic IPM. It can be argued that some or all of the perceived limitations on adoption listed previously are so pernicious as to still remain after nearly thirty years of effort. However, maybe there are other reasons for the limited farmer adoption of IPM in developing countries. Dare it be suggested that the philosophy is simply, by its very nature, difficult if not impossible to implement in many, if not the majority, of agricultural situations? This case has already been argued from one perspective, namely the deconstruction of IPM philosophy and, in particular, the knowledge-hungry nature of management as opposed to control. We have tried to illustrate that the oft-quoted answers to poor implementation will not address this fundamental knowledge-hungry nature of IPM. Of course, if enough resources are thrown at a problem it can be solved, but we feel the level of resources required to really make IPM work throughout most of the developing

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world is simply unrealistic, given current funding restraints. Although we believe the response of regarding complexity as a challenge (Litsinger, 1993) is noble and, indeed, underpins humankind's quest for knowledge, to which we agree in principle, it does rather ignore the fact that we are trying to help farmers now. We have no quarrel with science and the search for knowledge, but to some extent we must separate that quest from the specific and immediate aims of helping to improve the livelihood of farmers and their families and alleviating environmental damage. Striving for an adoption of IPM is not the same as the search for a deep understanding of a complex physical or biological phenomenon. We also feel that instant technical fixes, such as biotechnology and computer packages, will not transform the situation, at least not for resource-poor farmers in developing countries. Biotechnology in itself cannot satisfy this demand for knowledge, although it can supply components for crop protection such as resistant varieties. Computer packages can help manage knowledge, but they themselves have to be fed knowledge before they can become useful tools. Even so, although they may continue to have a role in education and research, will they really help IPM to be more applicable at the level of the farmer? The limited evidence to date does not point toward a massive uptake of the technology by farmers in the developed world, let alone those in developing countries. In the following two chapters, we will attempt to take the IPM debate back to its basics by asking what farmers really want for crop protection. It is only by asking such a basic question, and not by rejigging definitions and calling for more money, effort, or technical fixes, that we feel real progress can be made.

6 Resource-Poor Farmers and IPM

Resource-Poor Farmers: A Multitude of Concerns Farmers all over the world are involved in many activities other than crop protection, and except when the problem is severe, it is doubtful whether many farmers have sleepless nights thinking about methods and techniques of crop protection, including IPM. Indeed, the major limitations on agricultural production may be factors other than pests such as soil fertility, water availability, labor availability, distribution networks (roads, etc.), and market price. Too much emphasis on IPM, however, may easily lead to a neglect of introducing other appropriate agronomic practices which could also lead to substantial yield increases. —Schulten (1989a, 1989b) In subsistence farming, crop protection problems are one of many agronomic constraints in producing sufficient food, and therefore crop protection measures should be integrated with agronomic practices. —Van Huis, Meerman, and Takken (1990) Those working with farmers must be very careful not to elevate their own specialized concerns above those of the farmers they are trying to help (Chambers, Pacey, and Thrupp, 1989). This is often not as easy as it sounds, especially because many of those active in IPM have no formal training in agronomy, soil science, and socioeconomics. Farming is a complex business, and it is highly probable that relatively few crop protection scientists in developed countries are or have been farmers. The opposite is likely to be true in many developing countries. The training that scientists receive and indeed criteria for promotion encourage a concentration within a relatively narrow field of crop protection. Not only may a scientist specialize in entomology, but the chances 127

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are that he or she may specialize in a particular taxonomic group of insects (e.g., aphids) on a particular range of crops (e.g., cereals). Given the strong pressure to specialize, it is very hard to broaden one's horizon to encompass other crop protection issues, let alone factors such as soil fertility, water availability, and socioeconomics. O u r R&D institutions have d e m a n d e d ever-narrowing specialists. Of course, over-specialization is w o n d e r f u l for building international reputations, garnering grants, and publishing papers. It is the antithesis of practising IPM. —Barfield and Swisher (1994) Research scientists d o have an e n o r m o u s role to play in the develo p m e n t and implementation of IPM, but d e v e l o p i n g holistic IPM practices with a particular local farming c o m m u n i t y is a d e p a r t u r e from traditional research careers which reward specialising in narrow fields and publishing papers of international, not local, significance. —Waage (1996)

This problem has been long recognized, and the answer in many situations has been to encourage an interdisciplinary (or multidisciplinary) team approach as a solution. Van Huis, Meerman, and Takken (1990) explain: "IPM is an intricate interdisciplinary approach in which concepts, strategies and tactics have to be developed and applied in an effective, socially acceptable and economically feasible way." However, although the rhetoric is appealing, interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity have been difficult to put into practice as part of pest management (Barfield and Stimac, 1980; Barfield, Cardelli, and Boggess, 1987; Barfield and Swisher, 1994: Jeger, 1995). Unfortunately, few current IPM programmes include this broad type of joint interdisciplinary effort. Most remain ad h o c efforts by individual pest-control specialists, e a c h d e v e l o p i n g so-called IPM programmes independently of each other. —Pimentel (1982) While w e can form multidisciplinary teams, w e a p p e a r to be lacking the training or perhaps individuals w h o are specifically trained in the ability to synthesize highly specialized information. Synthesis, as opposed to mere s u m m a t i o n , c a n n o t be a c h i e v e d simply by a d d i n g c o m p o n e n t pieces of knowledge together. —Barfield and Swisher (1994); emphasis in the original

The difficulties involved in interdisciplinary work are legion and have been discussed by others (see, for example, Miller, 1983). The following list is adapted from Stoner, Sawyer, and Shelton (1986):

Resource-Poor Farmers and IPM

1 29

1. Disciplinary rivalry 2. Differences in "cognitive styles" between empirical and theoretical scientists 3. Use of the interdisciplinary group as a vehicle for promoting individual work within a single discipline 4. Pressure from peers and departments to keep within a discipline One also has to consider the fact that farmers may not necessarily be interested solely in increasing crop yield in terms of output per area. They may, for example, be more interested in output per labor input (Van Huis, Meerman, and Takken, 1990) and indeed in output stability in the face of adverse environmental and economic conditions. Farmers' goals can be very diverse, and time and energy spent on farming is played off against time and energy spent on other activities such as paid employment, trading, travel, household repairs, village meetings, family life, or even simply relaxation. This diversity has to be borne in mind when considering any sort of agricultural innovation, including pest control.

What Do Farmers Want for Crop Protection? Crop protection typically has a cost associated with it. This is obvious in countries where farmers will buy pesticides every year, but it also applies with other control technologies such as resistant plant varieties and cultural techniques. Here the costs may be more in terms of labor or lost opportunities to spend time on something else (opportunistic cost), but it is a cost no less. IPM is labor intensive, a point that has been made before (Food 2000, 1987), and time spent, no matter how small, monitoring pest and natural enemy populations is also a cost (as, of course, is the time spent learning how to monitor). The IPM worker taking a purely technical viewpoint may regard the time as insignificant relative to the benefits, but the farmer may not necessarily do so. Pest problems vary from crop to crop and from area to area. The guesstimate of a 30 percent loss typically quoted is very much an average figure—in a specific field it can be much more or much less. Pest problems will also vary from year to year. Given this variation, a logical (if somewhat sweeping) deduction is that farmers want flexibility in their crop protection. They may be willing to spend time and money when the situation warrants it but otherwise would prefer to face other, more pressing concerns. At first glance this may seem like the sort of situation in which pesticides used in conjunction with thresholds can be most useful— keep a store of pesticide and only apply it when the pest population reaches a certain level. However, time spent checking this population is in

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itself an expenditure, and there is always the risk that the critical level may be missed. An alternative approach to "wait and see" is simply to adopt a number of measures on a regular basis whether the pests are there in significant numbers or not; this is the "insurance" approach. This leaves the farmer free to concentrate on other activities of concern, as well as providing some peace of mind. Cultural techniques such as rotations and intercropping are examples of insurance measures, but the term "insurance" has become most closely associated with regular applications of pesticides. In the UK, for example, the relative cheapness of applying a pesticide makes it tempting for farmers to apply pesticide on an insurance basis at a fixed time in the development of the crop when spraying conditions are suitable (Arthurton, 1995). These farmers may not see the use of a threshold as worthwhile because they have other things to do and the cost of the insecticide is so cheap relative to the value of the crop. Problems arise, of course, when the pesticide application becomes so intense as to put the system on the pesticide treadmill described in the case studies in Chapter 4. Clearly, the varying conditions worldwide produce different emphases on "wait and see" and "insurance" approaches to crop protection, and the same farmer may practice both in different fields of his or her farm. Naturally, there are wider implications beyond the immediate concerns of the farmers (e.g., environmental damage), and there are others who can, and should, play a major role in trying to influence the farmer's decisionmaking process. However, one has to acknowledge that, in the absence of legislation, it is the farmer who makes the decisions, within a much broader framework than just crop protection. Just how farmers arrive at their decisions may not be immediately transparent. Many influences may be at play, including what other farmers are doing, and attempting to dissect why a particular farmer has adopted a particular crop protection approach can be a complex but fascinating exercise. Ironically, the very nature of many farming systems may actually mitigate against the widespread adoption of a technical, strategic IPM. Farmers all over the world are interested not in directly achieving technical perfection, but in making a living or even just surviving. As Jeger (1995) has pointed out, farmers are interested not in managing pests but in protecting their crop and the investments they have made in producing them. The crop protection they want may well be one that is less than technically perfect but is nonetheless achievable given their constraints and targets. Indeed, as mentioned earlier, farmers may not even necessarily be interested in increasing yields, as many agricultural scientists assume. Pest control needs to be viewed within the context of farmers' goals—which are not necessarily the maximisation of yields. —Croxton

(1994)

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131

The Social and Economic Dimensions of IPM Most definitions of IPM stress the need for the social and economic dimensions of crop protection to be taken on board. Indeed, some have linked this awareness to the dichotomy between control and management (Gabriel, 1989), with the former paying little attention to social issues and the latter viewing "pests within their total context, social as well as natural" (Gabriel, 1989). It has also been suggested that IPM has "responded comparatively well to women's needs in the sense that much IPM research has been directed at food crops and that pest management is a predominantly female task" (Malena, 1994). At one level, IPM clearly took economics on board because the whole concept of economic injury levels (EILs) is based on knowing the costbenefit ratio for a pesticide. However, the introduction of the EIL did not mark the introduction of an economic dimension to crop protection. As Ordish (1976) points out, cost-benefit ratios entered the crop protection literature in the 1950s, and there were earlier discussions on the economics of crop protection in the 1930s. Also, although EILs and thresholds are central to IPM, they are not exclusive to that approach to crop protection. Indeed, well before the recognized IPM era (from the 1960s on), extension entomologists were suggesting the use of economic thresholds, although the relatively low cost of pesticides mitigated against their use (Allen and Rajotte, 1990). The influence of environmental issues on the development of IPM can also be seen as a social dimension, especially because many now stress the nature of the environment as essentially a social construct rather than an absolute entity that is outside of us, and because environmental issues are also social issues (Blaikie, 1995). However, again this dimension should not be seen as unique to IPM, and single-control technologies can also lay claim to being environmentally friendly, depending on what the term means within a particular social context and time. Thus, it is difficult to argue that IPM incorporates any new social or economic dimension per se that could not also be part of an integrated or single-control approach to crop protection. The increasing awareness of these issues is not unique to IPM; nor did it necessarily originate with IPM, but instead developed from a much broader dissatisfaction with the standard model of agricultural technology innovation and dissemination (Chambers, Pacey, and Thrupp, 1989). Indeed, only later definitions of IPM, those dating from the 1970s, tend to mention social factors as an important consideration. IPM originated in the input-intensive agriculture of developed countries, where profit was king, and the dangers inherent in transferring IPM to developing countries are the same as for anything else (new crop varieties, fertilizers, machinery, etc.)—it is not inherently special or superior in this regard, and to see it as such may lead to complacency.

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Like any other innovation, IPM should be adjusted to the local social structures and systems, as Van Huis, Meerman, and Takken (1990) advise: "Usually the agricultural and socio-economic environment in tropical countries is such that an IPM approach developed for Western countries cannot simply be transferred." The same argument applies to the apparently "women friendly" nature of IPM noted by Malena (1994). The argument that IPM is women friendly because it addresses food crops and crop protection, a predominantly female task in much of the developing world, is not very convincing. To begin with, the crop protection activity that women are most involved in is weeding, and there have been few examples of IPM programs directed against weeds in developing or indeed developed countries. Secondly, as has already been pointed out, the crops that have received most effort in terms of IPM research and implementation have generally not been staple food crops, with the major exception of rice, but cash crops (cotton, apples, tobacco, citrus fruits, etc.). Also, employing these criteria, it can be argued that any research oriented toward crop protection will also be women friendly, and why should IPM be singled out in this respect? Therefore, of all the criteria usually employed to distinguish control from management (see Chapter 1), awareness of social factors is probably the least satisfactory, and it can be argued that awareness of such factors should overlay any meaningful crop protection approach and is not unique to IPM. IPM is also no more inherently women friendly than any other approach to crop protection. As much effort should be placed into ensuring that IPM meets farmers' and their families' needs as for any other approach to crop protection. Malena (1994) points out: "Although the principles underlying IPM are compatible with women's needs, IPM innovation has seldom taken place with specific regard for women farmers, and examples have been cited of IPM projects which have been rejected by women farmers as inappropriate." It has been argued by a number of authors that IPM is the most "economically viable" form of crop protection (Frisbie and Adkisson, 1985; Holl, Daily, and Ehrlich, 1990). Pest management programs have been justified by their ability to increase profits, either by increasing the yield or quality of the product, or by reducing costs. —Stoner, Sawyer, and SheIton (1986) New York producers are at an economic advantage because of IPM. —Koplinka-Loehr et al. (1996) The evidence seems to indicate that IPM increases the profits of farmers w h o use it and may also decrease the environmental loadings of certain pesticides, primarily insecticides. —Madden and Dobbs (1990)

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There have been various studies of the economics of IPM at the farm level, and these have indicated that IPM can reduce costs and increase net returns (Madden and Dobbs, 1990; White and Wetzstein, 1995). The main reason the cost-benefit ratio of IPM is frequently claimed to be more favourable relative to the sole use of pesticide largely revolves around a reduction in pesticide use (Frisbie and Adkisson, 1985; Bottrell, 1987; Madden and Dobbs, 1990). However, this can have a negative effect in that the lower cost of crop protection can lead farmers to plant a greater acreage of the crop and thereby reduce the overall market price if the demand for the product is relatively constant. White and Wetzstein (1995) provide an example of this effect for cotton production in the United States, and point out that there have been few analyses of the economic impact of IPM when such an aggregate viewpoint is taken. Relatively few thorough cost-benefit analyses of IPM have been performed for developing countries (Bottrell, 1987), and those that have been carried out often ignore benefits that are difficult to quantify, such as benefits for "social welfare" (Bottrell, 1987) or the environment (White and Wetzstein, 1995). In order to help address the latter point, an interesting move in recent years has been to broaden the EIL concept described in Chapter 2 to encompass environmental issues. Instead of just basing the EIL on narrow considerations of crop value and cost of control, it would be modified to incorporate some element of environmental cost (Pedigo and Higley, 1992; Pedigo, 1996). As one reviews IPM research programs for small farmers in the Third World what is most striking is how frequently these programs avoid the economic bottom line: Is IPM worth the farmers' efforts? —Goodell

(1984)

The relative lack of information in this area and the poor emphasis it is often given as part of IPM implementation programs are somewhat surprising, especially because promises of economic savings are often a principle motivation for moving to IPM in the first place (Goodell, 1984). The identification and quantification of what one considers to be costs within IPM can often be another problem. Clearly pesticide use is an obvious cost, and the use of action or economic thresholds should reduce this cost relative to the unquestioning blanket or insurance application of pesticide. However, labor is also a cost, as is time spent monitoring pests as part of an IPM program. For example, Brunner (1994) makes the following comment with regard to the cost of pest monitoring in fruit crops: "While implementation of IPM methods can reduce pesticide use in fruit crops, saving the grower the expense of these products, the savings are often offset by the expense of orchard monitoring." An illustration of the above is provided by a study conducted in the UK between 1981 and 1988, which compared at the farm level the environmental

1 34

Resource-Poor Farmers and IPM

impact and economics of a full insurance regime of pesticide application with an approach based on thresholds (Greig-Smith, 1992). Although the use of thresholds reduced average pesticide cost per hectare, once the cost of monitoring ("crop walking") was included, the use of thresholds became on average more expensive than an "insurance" regime (Jarvis, 1992). In fact, the IPM approach does have a very high labor requirement relative to many other pest control activities, largely because of the need to carefully monitor pest populations. It has been argued that the brunt of this increase in labor requirement will fall on women because they are the group most often involved in crop protection (particularly weeding) in much of Africa: Many IPM technologies are labor-intensive and time-consuming and are, therefore, poorly suited to this specific technological need of women farmers. Women who are already working at their maximum daily threshold are unlikely to be able to provide the time and labor required to conduct detailed pest monitoring or surveillance. —Malena

(1994)

Therefore, given the increase in labor required for IPM and assuming that IPM will mostly be carried out by women in Africa, it can be logically argued that IPM has a greater detrimental effect on women than men— hardly an example of a woman friendly approach to crop protection! However, this is a generalization, and although women may be most involved in weeding, men will likely be most involved in pesticide application and probably any detailed pest monitoring. An increase in labor with IPM may not just be carried by farmers and their families; according to Stoner, Sawyer, and Shelton (1986): "IPM has a higher labor requirement than conventional pest control programs, involving large numbers of scouts to carry out the biological and environmental monitoring, practitioners to interpret the data and give personal advice and services, and scientists to provide applied research and technical support." All of this labor and expertise costs money, yet there have been few, if any, attempts to assess the costs of IPM throughout its development and implementation and compare these to other pest control options. Instead, economic evaluations of IPM have tended to concentrate solely on the ramifications of a reduction in pesticide use. Time spent on sampling has other costs besides labor—it means less time to spend on other activities that may not necessarily generate revenue. For example, farmers may simply want to rest or play with their children. This trade-off between activities can be a frustration for a visiting crop protection scientist who views the system with technical perfection and a Western concept of efficiency in mind.

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IPM and Farmer First The points discussed throughout this chapter so far are not new or revolutionary. They already form part of the broad literature on development (Chambers, Pacey, and Thrupp, 1989), and have been recognized by many crop protection scientists, including those involved in IPM. The idea of taking farmers as the starting point in the development process goes under the generic name of "farmer first," and dates back to the late 1970s (Scoones and Thompson, 1994b). It represents the antithesis of the transfer of technology model whereby decisions over what needs to be done in any situation are made by researchers and passed on to the farmers. Farmer first embodies a partnership with farmers with outsiders acting as catalysts or facilitators in the development process, within which farmers and their families play the central role. The following quotation crystallizes the ethos behind farmer first: With farmer first, the main objective is not to transfer known technology, but to empower farmers to learn, adapt and do better; analysis is not by outsiders—scientists, extensionists, or N G O workers—on their own but by farmers and by farmers assisted by outsiders; the primary location for R&D is not the experimental station, laboratory or greenhouse, necessary though they are for some purposes, but farmers' fields and conditions; what is transferred by outsiders to farmers is not precepts but principles, not messages but methods, not a package of practices to be adopted but a basket of choices from which to select. The menu, in short, is not fixed or table d'hote, but a la carte and the menu itself is a response to farmers' needs articulated by them. —Chambers (1989) Farmer first is a paradigm, as is IPM, and like IPM it has been taken on board by many development agencies and those involved in funding applied research in developing countries. It is an all-embracing paradigm, and applies to all aspects of agricultural research and development, and as a result the literature is vast and rapidly growing (for example, see various papers in Scoones and Thompson, 1994a). It has certainly not been without its critics, and some accuse the farmer first proponents of having a romantic view of farmers and their knowledge. After the arrival of the farmer first approach in the late 1970s, much of the more recent IPM literature (1980s onwards) expressed the need to adapt IPM to the needs of farmers. For example: The whole effort, from the time the initial research is performed through implementation and evaluation of the IPM program, must evolve as a true partnership between farmers and scientists. —Bottrell (1983)

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The importance of this [the need to understand local requirements] is stressed by a g r o w i n g number of authors urging that I P M programs address m u c h more the needs, perceptions, resources, constraints, and objectives of target farmers. —Wearing (1988) Finally, and by no means least important, is the need to understand pest management problems from the farmers' point of view; they are, after all, the people most involved in making pest management decisions. W e need to appreciate their perceptions of pest problems, h o w they tackle them, and what on-farm constraints there might be in future improvements. —Norton (1993)

Others have been even more vociferous on the need to incorporate the farmer into the development of IPM. Placing the farmer at the centre of the technology development process is w h o l l y consistent with the I P M goal of making the farmer a confident manager and decision maker, free from dependence on a constant stream of pest control instructions from outside. . . . For I P M too, it makes sense to put the farmer first. —Matteson

(1992)

Implementation of I P M in third world countries must be based on a close co-ordination between research, training and technical assistance, carried out with the fullest possible participation of the farmers right from the start. Farmers' knowledge of their land and metho d s of agriculture and pest control s h o u l d form the basis o n w h i c h the I P M is devised. —Kaaya (1994)

Indeed, it is interesting to note how often IPM is taken to sit comfortably within the farmer first paradigm. In having farmers make their o w n decisions, the I P M approach avoids the " t o p - d o w n " transfer of externally-designed "packages" to them. —Winarto (1994)

We have already pointed out that some see pest management as inherently more attuned to its social context than pest control, although we find the case to be far from convincing. At a superficial level, it is easy to understand why IPM is believed to be in tune with farmer first. First of all, there is the diversity of views as to just what IPM is, which may appear to allow the kind of flexibility necessary for farmer first. However, as far as farmer first is concerned, this flexibility is deceptive because it does not

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represent a planned consensus of views but rather is the sum of many views, some of which can be quite contradictory (e.g., the position of pesticides within IPM). Each individual brings his or her particular view of IPM to any practical situation. But the tendency is still toward seeing IPM as a "a package of practices to be adopted" to solve a crop protection problem. IPM is also inherently attractive because it minimizes the need for external inputs such as pesticides as a central plank of the philosophy. The emphasis instead is upon a sustainable approach to crop protection, which certainly resonates with much of the farmer first literature that emphasizes indigenous knowledge and methods (see the previous quotation by Chambers, 1989). However, IPM is by no means unique in terms of its emphasis on a reduction or elimination of pesticide use. For example, pesticide management with relatively simple action thresholds also helps reduce the application of pesticide. Although the idea of bringing farmers into the development of IPM is very laudable, the starting point for crop protection is still seen as being IPM, and the "basket of choices" is an IPM basket with rather limited choices! The following quotations are but a few examples that illustrate this point: Pest management is only important when it benefits mankind. Our job is to develop IPM programs that are, over the long term, socially and economically best for the largest possible number of people. —Ruesink (1980) If we are serious in wanting IPM to be adopted, we ourselves must be as flexible, open-minded and realistic in approaching crop protection challenges as we want the farmers to be. —Goodell (1989)

The emphasis throughout is clearly upon the adoption of IPM, and farmer first (flexibility, open-mindedness) is applied within this emphasis. In other words, the IPM paradigm overlays the farmer first paradigm, and one applies the farmer first approach after the decision to adopt IPM has already been made by outsiders. Is this really farmer first when an a priori decision is made regarding the approach and all the methodological baggage that goes with it, which the farmers have to take to get crop protection? What is IPM if it is not a "package of practices to be adopted"? As Croxton points out, in contradiction to the earlier Winarto (1994) quotation: IPM strategies do not in themselves break away from the TOT [transfer of technology] model of technology development and dissemination. In particular, there is not necessarily any compulsion to include farmers in developing an IPM strategy, except as people who are consulted. Neither is there any compulsion to recognise, value or use

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Resource-Poor Farmers and IPM farmers' own knowledge and experience. In other words, there is no compulsion to let farmers make key decisions in IPM strategies. —Croxton (1994)

Even if farmers are involved in the development of the methodological details, they may not have been asked directly whether the IPM approach is one that they want. Rather than attempt to fit IPM to the farmers, would it not be better to consider other approaches to crop protection besides IPM, which may meet the farmers needs far better? These may indeed have elements of the IPM approach, albeit modified and made more practicable. A true farmer first approach should be an all-embracing one with no, or at least as few as possible, assumptions on the part of those outsiders involved in the process. As has been pointed out by Matteson (1992): "Stress is laid on the need for farmer participation at every step of the R&D process in order to draw on farmers' intimate understanding of local conditions and constraints, their innovativeness, and their skill at making the best possible living using limited resources." Although the technical ideas behind IPM are excellent, the application of the philosophy does have costs and implications. Farmers need to be consulted about the acceptability of these costs before any decision about adoption of IPM is made. However, this is often far from the reality, even in a developed country like the United States. Initial efforts to implement integrated pest management (IPM) for sorghum, Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench, in Texas began in 1973. Since that time, extensive sorghum entomology research has been conducted to develop insect-resistant varieties, cultural control methods, and economic thresholds for appropriate and timely use of insecticides. Little work has been done, however, to identify sorghum farmers' needs and perceptions of IPM, or to assess the degree of adoption of new IPM technologies among sorghum farmers. —Merchant and Teetes (1994)

Indeed, as we already mentioned, pest control in general may not be among the priorities of the farmers and their families. Assuming IPM is the only answer to crop protection and then consulting farmers about the details of the management regime is a false form of the farmer first ideology. A central paradox lies at the heart of promoting IPM to developing countries. IPM, especially the strategic form, is first and foremost a highly technical form of crop protection. It depends upon extensive ecological knowledge of the pest and factors that limit its population, and this can be very site-specific. Because of the very nature of IPM the science has to come first and the farmer second. An element of the top-down approach to agricultural innovation criticized by many may be almost inevitable,

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given the technical demands of IPM. It is true that, after the necessary knowledge has been gained and broad strategies developed, then farmers may be consulted about fine-tuning the implementation, but the options at this stage may be limited. Traditional peasant systems of agriculture are not primitive left-overs from a past age but are, on the contrary, systems finely tuned and adapted, both biologically and socially to the needs of what is often a harsh and inimical environment. . . . It is throwing the baby out with the bathwater to suggest that these be scrapped and replaced with some alternative system—and moreover it is wholly unscientific. —Haskell, Beacock, and Whortley (1981) The danger is that an initial focus on the technical requirements for IPM may lead to a replacement with some "alternative system" in the name of technical excellence. One of the most telling statements in this regard is provided by Brunner (1994): "Choosing pest control actions that balance economic, ecological and sociological concerns and priorities set by diverse groups of people may never be possible, nor should it necessarily be the objective of IPM." Compare this to a contradictory and yet typical statement about IPM in the United States that promotes this very diversity (Stoner, Sawyer, and Shelton, 1986): "Students of pest management should realize that IPM is intended to serve a variety of constituencies (farmers, consumers and society as a whole) and is carried out with the cooperation of several different institutions (universities, the government and private pest management operations)." Although the statement by Brunner appears to contradict the typical view of IPM and indeed the current popularity of the farmer first approach, we believe that it does encapsulate a fundamental truth—namely, IPM is first and foremost a product of scientists with the concerns of farmers regarded as secondary. Given the political environment under which IPM arose during the 1960s and 1970s, as outlined in Chapter 3, then its technical and environmental emphasis, as opposed to an emphasis on farmers, comes as no surprise. Because it originated in the industrialization of agriculture within developed countries, a situation far removed from the prevalent conditions faced by many resource-poor farmers in developing countries, an incompatibility between IPM and the farmer first approach may be inevitable. First, this reflects the fact that environmental damage from the use of pesticides transcends the concerns and wishes of farmers at a village level. Farmer first has a tendency, not unsurprisingly, to focus on farmers and their families rather than on the concerns of the wider society. For example, farmers may wish to use pesticides on an insurance basis, but the environmental damage that could result from this may have repercussions on

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a much larger scale and effect society as a whole. Clearly in this case, farmers could be encouraged to moderate their level of pesticide use in order to satisfy societal concerns, not just their short-term concerns. Second, strategic IPM must be applied over a large area for it to work, and this requires farmers to work as a team rather than as individuals making their own decisions on a farm level. As Stoner, Sawyer, and Shelton (1986) have pointed out, at least in regard to the United States, this "breaks with tradition" and may not meet with uniform approval. Do the farmers remain first in this scenario, or is some compulsion from outside required? It also has to be said that the farmer first paradigm can be criticized on a number of points, among which is the criticism that farmer first has a tendency to overplay the contribution from farmers and underplay the contribution from scientists. Development specialists. . . must stop "romanticizing" the virtues of traditional agriculture in the Third World. Moreover, leaders in developing countries must not be duped into believing that future food requirements can be met through continuing reliance on . . . the new, complicated and sophisticated "low input, low output" technologies that are impractical for farmers to adopt. —Borlaug (1992)

We would, of course, see IPM as a classic "complicated and sophisticated" technology.

7 Realistic Crop Protection: A New Road?

Whose Agenda? The point has been made often in this book that IPM rests on two planks. The first of these is technology integration, which is taken to mean a combination of different crop protection technologies, but in practice has commonly meant using pesticides in such a way as to minimize negative effects on natural enemies. The second is the philosophy of pest management as opposed to control. Both involve very different sets of problems when it comes to implementation by a farmer. Technology integration depends on the availability of suitable technologies, and knowledge on the way in which they can be dovetailed. The problems are then ones of practicality and cost and require the kind of expertise very familiar to the farmer. Recommendations for reducing interference between control technologies can be developed (e.g., pest thresholds for pesticide application), and relevant pest population targets can be relatively simple (i.e., action thresholds) in order to be effective and help reduce pesticide application. For example, a decision can be made to treat only part of the field, to switch to an insecticide that causes less damage to natural enemies, or perhaps to apply a lower dose rate (quantity/area). Extra time or labor required for integrated control may be a one-time cost rather than continuous throughout the season. The farmer therefore has some flexibility over when to incur the extra cost. Although pesticides are often thought of as forming the basis of IPC, there are many other technologies that can be added. For example, much research has shown that pest-resistant varieties combined with mortality arising from the natural enemy complex (Boethel and Eikenbary, 1986) can be effective. Pest management, however, requires more knowledge. Indeed, as explained earlier, it is the knowledge-hungry nature of pest management that probably distinguishes it from pest control more than any other characteristic. The development of an IPM program requires detailed knowledge of 141

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the agro-ecosystem and its components and interactions, and this knowledge does not come easy or cheap. In addition, the implementation of a particular IPM program may also require continuous monitoring of the pest complex and their natural enemies, combined with continuous decisionmaking by the farmer. In order to do this, the farmer will need both to identify the pests and natural enemies and to sample each field in such a way as to obtain reliable information on the population density. This requires expertise, and the skills involved may be quite different from those already possessed by the farmer. In addition, the decisionmaking process is continuous over longer time scales, although perhaps concentrated at particular stages of crop growth. The extra labor needed is also spread over the season rather than concentrated at just one time, which creates a subsequent greater probability that need will be high when labor is scarce. Given the above, integrated control may be somewhat easier to implement for many farmers than management, and the evidence to date suggests that this is indeed so. Examples of integration are legion, especially those involving the use of pesticides, whereas examples of pest management are more limited to the sort of typical conditions mentioned earlier. As has been mentioned by a number of authors, many of the often-quoted examples of IPM are really nothing more than pesticide management programs, which are at heart essentially the same as IPC with pesticides applied on the basis of action thresholds. Even if pesticide management is practiced by many farmers in an area, this is far removed from the real IPM as envisaged and still aimed for by many. We are not saying that such programs have not been beneficial—far from it. Any program that reduces, or indeed eliminates, the use of pesticides while maintaining adequate crop protection and avoiding negative socioeconomic effects on farmers and their families is to be applauded. The key point we are making is that the proponents of strategic or real IPM want to go far beyond this and move into ecosystem management on a grand scale. They want to determine the biology and ecology of the pest and natural enemy complex in some detail, including how these interactions change with environmental factors. This will require not only ecological, but also economic and sociological knowledge. Even if all of this is obtained, the farmer still has to implement the whole thing alongside all of his or her other activities. This is all very ambitious, requiring much effort on research and training just to get a baseline. Whether farmers will implement it is another question. There has been much acknowledgment of the fact that the philosophy of pest management doesn't translate into practical application, and many have correctly identified the need to make sure that farmers are involved in the whole process of program development (see Chapter 5). However, the problem is that real IPM is heavily dependent on knowledge derived externally to the farmers. To get this and locate it within a strong socioeconomic

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context is in practice very difficult and will take a long time. The danger is that lip-service will be paid to achieving this, whereas in practice the realities of funding and "value for one's money" will almost guarantee that what is being attempted will be but a shadow of real IPM. The strategic end of the tactical-strategic IPM axis has a strong pull, and with enough resources we can get there, but are these resources forthcoming in the current climate? We think not. It should be remembered that IPM originated in developed countries and was conceived by agricultural scientists in those countries. IPM has been shaped almost entirely by the needs and forces of agricultural technology of developed countries. —Smith (1983) However, IPM is now being promoted for agro-ecosystems throughout the world, including those in developing countries that are far removed from the agro-ecosystems in which IPM originated, even though the views and perceptions of IPM which are employed are still very much those of agricultural scientists. Like virtually all innovations in agriculture that have been promoted for developing countries, the importance of the farmers' needs has entered the IPM scene only recently. Although many now call for a more "farmer-centered" approach to IPM, the starting point is still taken to be IPM in all of its technical glory. Are the farmers really being put first? The rewards for effective research and development in IPM are also closely linked to new contributions to science and technology in the international arena instead of to the less glamorous but more important social and economic benefits of the work at a local level. —Wearing (1988) Maybe the way forward is to recognize the IPM paradigm for what it is: the ideal way to deal with pests but one that is also very knowledgeand expertise-hungry. In many situations, why not accept an approach that is less intensive in this way but more applicable? Calling repeatedly for more research, extension, government support, and farmer cooperation may not be of any help and indeed may just hide the real problem. The same is true of the repeated attempts to redefine IPM in such a way as to make it more achievable—this is not solving the fundamental problem of the approach but simply using words to hide the fact that problems exist. It has been said that the diversity of IPM definitions is healthy because it reflects an evolutionary process whereby IPM adapts to changing circumstances (Allen and Bath, 1980). Indeed it does, but we believe that the evolution has been driven largely by a recognition of poor adoption and a desire to keep the term IPM rather than any other dynamic. In this sense the

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diversity is far from healthy and is indicative of a weakness in the underlying approach—why is there a need to keep the IPM label for approaches that are far from being real IPM? One of the most fascinating aspects of the IPM saga is not the science or, indeed, the role of farmers and extension agents, but the position of the IPM scientists themselves. Often the focus has been upon the scientific components of IPM and the farmers, with relatively little attention paid to the agenda of the scientists. To be sure, there have been some excellent analyses of the practicality of interdisciplinarity, and there have been a number of calls to introduce a farmer first perspective to IPM. What has often been overlooked, however, is the fact that IPM is a creation of scientists, and it is the scientists who have largely controlled its evolution, albeit subject to various pressures. The farmer first perspective in IPM is pleasant rhetoric but only an add-on—the underlying philosophy and approach have already been determined by scientists. Dare we say that real IPM is a scientists' dream of what crop protection should be, with the emphasis on technical excellence as perceived by the scientist? After all, to get to this state of excellence requires a great deal of research, and of course it is the scientists who do this research. Is their agenda really the same as that of the farmers, or do they have vested interests? Pepper and, more recently, Palladino, have pointed out: Related to this type of criticism of scientific objectivity has been the observation that while the work of scientists to answer questions and solve problems may proceed in a neutral way, the issue of what questions are asked, and what problems are deemed to be worthy of scientific study is, of course, not devoid of value judgements. —Pepper (1984); emphases added All scientific discourse is embedded in a social one, and any discussion of the social problems arising from technological change cannot ignore the active and powerful role of scientists in shaping these problems. —Palladino (1996) We would argue that the people at the center of IPM are not farmers, extension agents, politicians, policymakers, or the public, but scientists, and the IPM approach should be seen primarily in terms of their desires and agenda. It is true that scientists are not a uniform group, nor are they isolated from the rest of society and its influences. The IPM paradigm as we know it today is primarily their creation. Seen through this optic, the evolution of IPM with all of its contradictions, failures, and frustrations becomes a very natural progression, and poor adoption by farmers is easily explained—after all, if it is not really meant for them, why should they be expected to adopt it? Why should farmers follow an agenda that has been created by scientists for scientists?

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It should not be construed from the foregoing that we are antagonistic to the involvement of scientists in crop protection—far from it. IPM is not a science but a paradigm—a viewpoint of what crop protection should look like. Many of the technical elements within IPM have been derived using the scientific method, but IPM is the opinion of some people as to how crop protection should be. It is the unquestioning promotion of this viewpoint that we are criticizing, not the science that underpins it. Indeed, we have no objection to visualizing IPM as an ideal. The problem is that we live in a far from ideal world, and farmers are looking for help now.

The Need for Another Paradigm Shift IPM represents an ideal that everybody would like to follow if they could. It does work under certain conditions, but given the complexities of the real world it may simply be impractical under many (if not the majority) of farming conditions that currently prevail worldwide. Paradigms are useful, but they can also be dangerous. IPM has attracted many adherents, although, ironically, relatively few of these have been the people meant to implement it, and IPM has become the dominant paradigm in crop protection. There are dangers of letting a dominant paradigm, even one based on a technical ideal, determine just what should be put into practice. Unfortunately, warnings to this effect have been few and far between, and the momentum behind IPM, especially because it has become a political issue, has ensured that it continues to be dominant. The attraction of an ideal is indeed very strong. The major change we feel is required is not the redefinition of IPM, promotion of interdisciplinarity, or even a greater awareness of farmers needs when developing IPM. Instead, we would like to suggest that the dominance of IPM be reevaluated and questioned. We believe it to be an ideal that may not be attainable in the foreseeable future. What we have at the moment with much of IPM (strategic and tactical) is really "technology first" crop protection, with farmers playing a subordinate role (see Figure 7.1), and we would like to suggest that the reverse should be the case. This begs the question of whether crop protection is a central concern of the farmer. Crop protection needs to be seen within a much wider context, and its placement in any specific situation needs to be determined in partnership with the local people. Throughout this process, it should be borne in mind that the aim is to help the people, not the scientists. However, although farmers' needs are central, their wishes for crop protection have to be tempered with a notion of what is good for society. For example, even though pesticides may provide a solution, albeit temporary, and farmers may like to use them on a routine basis for a variety of reasons, they should not be encouraged to carry out activities to the detriment of society

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Realistic Crop Protection: A New Road?

Figure 7.1 The Technoceritric (Technology First) and Sociocentric (Farmer-Society First) Approaches to IPM Technology First

Society First Farmer First

IPM

Crop Protection

IPM

/

Other People Other Concerns

\ Other Approaches

Farmer

as a whole. The key point here is that IPM exists as only one of a set of options for crop protection. The result is a "farmer-society first" or sociocentric approach to crop protection. Even within the much narrower field of crop protection, IPM needs to be seen as one approach that may or may not be more suitable than others. The emphasis initially should be upon recognizing farmer constraints and their existing technical knowledge, and these should be the starting points when determining the nature of a particular approach to crop protection. We believe Matteson, Altieri, and Gagne get very close to encapsulating the way forward for crop protection in developing countries. Not all traditional crop protection components, even with modification, will be applicable in modern times. However, traditional cropping practices must be and are beginning to be taken as the basis for further development of technologies adapted to farmers' needs and resource base. This requires an agro-socioeconomic approach that analyzes the farming system in a holistic framework. Useful pest control characteristics of traditional systems must be preserved or augmented whenever possible, and suggested changes should be tested to make sure they are consonant with the farmers' environmental and socioeconomic circumstances. This work must start on farms with farmers and not on research stations. —Matteson, Altieri, and Gagne (1984) However, they follow this statement with an emphasis on the need for teaching pest management to farmers! We would suggest that pest management need not necessarily be a goal within this process because the above is attainable without farmers having to manage the pest population in the way that IPM embodies, particularly in its strategic form. Instead, flexibility is critical, and the virtual enforcement of IPM from outside destroys that flexibility.

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For example, in contrast to management, integration is achievable, and many farmers in the developing world already practice an IPC approach to crop protection, although they may not use pesticides. Clearly there is room for building upon this, and perhaps the emphasis in some situations should be upon the generation of more options for integration within the major control technology groups. If pesticides are not being used, why not derive component technologies and methods of integration that the farmers can try and then adapt/adopt as they see fit? The farmer first paradigm is all about having a "basket of choices from which to select" (Chambers, 1989) as well as working with farmers in order to help them select the best options from the basket and making suggestions as to how these could be best integrated. Throughout, the needs of the wider society need to be considered as well as those of the farmer. Clearly the crop protection scientist has a vital role here. Pesticide management (or tactical IPM) is also achievable, as evidenced by the case studies on cotton and rice presented in Chapter 4 of this book. The basic idea of limiting pesticide use and thereby reducing harmful environmental effects is certainly achievable and desirable. Indeed, the success of these programs is typically presented in terms of quantity and value of pesticide saved. However, even here there are problems. Economic thresholds, the often-mentioned bedrock of tactical IPM, are very difficult to achieve in practice, and great care should be taken to avoid their imposition in circumstances in which they may be of marginal (if any) benefit, or where they are simply unlikely to be followed for a variety of reasons. A great deal of research and extension time and effort could be wasted, and as these are at a premium the waste could be positively harmful in terms of lost opportunity. Therefore, why not aim at simpler action thresholds instead and base these on a system of monitoring which may not be technically ideal, but which farmers will be able to practice? Please note that we are not talking of simplification for the sake of simplification. What we are really talking about is the development of thresholds and sampling methods that farmers are likely to use. After all, even a simple action threshold based on crude calculations may succeed in reducing pesticide use without any decline in yield. It is essential that IPM methods be simplified as much as possible, particularly the use of monitoring and action thresholds. —Wearing (1988) IPM researchers should bear greater responsibility for simplifying surveillance and early warning systems. —Goodell (1989) Whether what results from this flexibility can still be called IPM is debatable, and the terms "IPC" or "pesticide management" are probably

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more applicable. However, the use of these terms should not be viewed as representing an inferior approach to crop protection and employing the IPM label as a "talisman" (Hilder and Hamilton, 1994) or to provide "an aura of credibility" (Schulten, 1989a, 1989b) must surely be symptomatic of a deep malaise. We need to focus primarily on what is achievable under the farmers' circumstances rather than what is technically perfect. In some ways the foregoing may sound very familiar. After all, the approaches we have mentioned are ones that are already being practiced by millions of farmers throughout the world. To a large extent what we see in practice in developing countries, whether we like it or not, is farmer-centric IPC, with varying degrees of influence from elements within society (or at least the government on behalf of society). Projects that set out to promote IPM typically end up by promoting IPC almost by default, although the IPM label is kept, almost as a seal of approval. Farmers may or may not wish to practice IPM, but they should be asked first before a decision is made for them, and allowing them to fine-tune an imposed IPM is simply not enough and, frankly, will not lead to success except in very particular circumstances. One suspects in practice that the result of the discussion would, on many occasions, be more akin to a sociocentric IPC, with farmers and society taken first, than to a technically centered IPM (Table 7.1). Therefore, what we are calling for in this book is a different mindset among crop protection scientists, one that is less biased toward technical excellence and more geared toward helping farmers and the rest of society. The adoption of IPM was itself hailed as a quantum leap in the whole approach to crop protection by researchers (Perkins, 1982), but maybe too much happened too fast—maybe the researchers need to relinquish some of this control. Let it not be said that we are the first to point out the potential inappropriateness of technocentric IPM, especially in a developing-country context. As early as 1983 we have the following comments: I P M as w e k n o w it in developed countries is highly unsuited to traditional farming in developing countries. . . . A c c o r d i n g to the "conventional w i s d o m , " s o m e "integrating" features of I P M are as follows:

Table 7.1

Technocentric and Sociocentric Approaches to Crop Protection

Technocentric IPM

Sociocentric IPC

Emphasis on pest management

Less emphasis on management and more on control Less research may be required—focus is not upon technical exactness but upon practicality Simple and easy sampling methods

Need for extensive/intensive biological and ecological research by scientists Constant monitoring of pest and natural enemy populations Economic thresholds Technology-centered

Action thresholds Farmer- and society-centered

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149

1. IPM is a multidisciplinary approach which includes all pests 2. all management tactics are coordinated in a unified program 3. crop protection is considered but one aspect of agro-ecosystem management 4. IPM addresses economic, ecological and social issues. . . . While this listing is given much lip service, it represents more of an aspiration than a reality even in developed countries, and for developing countries is unrealistic for the foreseeable future. —Smith (1983) Undoubtedly, the IPM approach is appropriate for certain pest management situations. However, adherence to this paradigm, at least in terms of its "supervised control" aspect, for all pest management situations may lead to little implementation in practice. —Norton (1987) How will a real sociocentric approach to crop protection be implemented? In practice this first requires crop protection scientists to take a much broader view of the context within which they are helping to provide solutions (Norton and Mumford, 1993). Maximum flexibility is required at the outset, and crop protection scientists have to be prepared to accept that they may have little, if anything, to offer in many circumstances. Of course, we are calling for nothing new—the tools and techniques for determining the priorities of farmers and their desires and limitations already exist and, indeed, are widely applied in many facets of agricultural research in developing countries (Scoones and Thompson, 1994a) and can be applied specifically to crop protection (Mumford and Norton, 1993). The dominance of the IPM paradigm brought about, in part, by an assumed monopoly linkage with "sustainability" has, we believe, prevented crop protection from moving as far in this direction as other agricultural sciences. Unfortunately, dominant paradigms have a habit of becoming selffulfilling. Although IPM has had limited success in terms of its adoption by farmers, it does have a very successful history in terms of its adoption by scientists, pressure groups, and policymakers. IPM is dominant because the scientists, and through them the policymakers, say so, and so much has been invested into IPM that many will be extremely reluctant to recognize it as just a distant ideal. Nevertheless, the dreams of IPM proponents will continue to be just dreams, and farmers will continue to follow approaches that fit their own agenda—even if by so doing they continue to frustrate those wishing for an ideal to become reality.

Some Conclusions IPM entered the vocabulary and mind-set of crop protection researchers and practitioners in the 1960s and 1970s, and the conditions under which it was developed are far removed from many of the circumstances in

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Realistic Crop Protection: A New Road?

which it has been pushed since the 1960s. Its emphasis on reducing pesticide inputs is to be applauded, but this in itself does not distinguish IPM from other approaches to crop protection, which also attempt to minimize pesticide use. The heart of real IPM is its all-embracing target of ecosystem management over an extended period of time, based on extensive "scientific" knowledge as to how the ecosystem works. It is this facet that marks out the area occupied by real IPM. After all, if one redefines "scientific knowledge" to incorporate knowledge based on farmer experience, and perhaps views "ecosystem management" in a less exact and mechanistic way than is normally done, one could convincingly argue that socalled resource-poor farmers in many developing countries have been practicing IPM for many centuries! What developed countries have imposed is the more exact view of management based on a body of scientific knowledge derived largely through the in-vogue hypothetical-deductive, reductionist, and mechanistic approaches. This knowledge is new and external to the farmers and has to be assimilated by them in order for IPM to be implemented. Lack of IPM implementation, even in its simpler tactical form, has become apparent to many researchers and practitioners. Usually, the fault for this poor level of implementation has been laid firmly at the door of virtually every group of actors involved in crop protection: farmers, extension agents, administrators, politicians, industrialists, and scientists. Calls are made for, among other things, more money from politicians and more cooperation from farmers. All this has to be seen in the context of decades of research into IPM and its strong emphasis and promotion in development programs. This gap between theory and implementation has lead some to redefine IPM so as to make it achievable, leading to programs that involve more pest control than management. Furthermore, in this book we reiterated the fact that technological change is not socially or culturally neutral. Any crop protection strategy and its concomitant research institutions and extension services is made up of the ideas and actions of individuals and their perceptions of the problems they confront. The outcome of their research is the realization and adoption of the ideas and resultant technologies of those with the most power. To attempt to transfer this to another culture is at best naive and at worst arrogant. IPM evolved within the industrialization of U.S. agriculture and, as such, it is a technological and intellectual innovation that fits industrial agriculture. To attempt to transfer this to resource-poor farmers in developing countries is simply not going to work unless account is taken of the very different conditions that prevail there. Of course, there is nothing wrong with the technologies within IPM or, indeed, with the concept of strategic IPM as an ideal way to reduce pest losses. What is wrong is to try and fit an approach into a social context in which it will not work for the sake of trying to implement a technical ideal. Many developing

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151

countries are trying to industrialize their agricultural base in order to fit into world markets and become more "efficient," and IPM could well have a role here as it has in such agro-ecosystems within developed countries. However, if agriculture is going to be industrialized, then resource-poor farmers—by their very definition—will not be playing a role in it. In this context there are always winners and losers, and if a government has policies promoting industrialization, then to introduce IPM as an answer for resource-poor farmers is contradictory. IPM carries with it a long history of rhetoric, and as shown earlier it is all things to all people. It is here that the problem lies. The rhetoric of IPM makes it ideal for politicians and others in positions of social responsibility, who conceive grandiose schemes for helping resource-poor farmers, when in fact the macropolicies that they advocate totally contradict the ones necessary to improve the lot of those most in need (Dent, 1991). We need more true appraisals of what can be done and not more rhetoric that plays into the hands of those evading their social responsibilities, thus enabling them to realize their perceptions of what is or is not best for others. Until we redress this situation, the calls for IPM or, indeed, farmer first will continue to be bandied about with little actual impact on those they are intended to help. Instead of playing with words, we have suggested that IPM, especially the strategic form, should be seen for what it truly is—an ideal approach to crop protection that, like many other ideals, is not easily achieved. It is easy to see why IPM is attractive to researchers and practitioners. Environmental protection is allied with mainstream methods of scientific inquiry resulting in a technocentric approach to crop protection and much prestige for those involved in its research. However, crop protection is implemented for the most part by farmers, not scientists, and IPM tends to place heavy demands on this former group. In view of this we have called for a shift in emphasis away from technical excellence toward what farmers can put into practice without causing environmental damage to the whole of society. Researchers and practitioners need to take farmers' conditions much more into account, and temper these with wider environmental concerns. Farmer first is by now an old battle cry of development agents, and the development literature is replete with this philosophy. However, crop protection appears to have been very resilient to this movement; the essentially technocentric nature of the IPM paradigm still dominates. Calling for farmer first IPM is as meaningless as calling for a farmer first irrigation scheme with farmers given a degree of control over the exact siting of the channels and the type of pump to use. Farmer first means nothing if the farmers have no say in whether IPM should be the approach taken to crop protection in the first place, or indeed whether improved crop protection should be the primary aim of research in a particular farming situation.

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Although as a rule it is good to aim high, the best use of limited resources in a diverse world must be seen as the immediate goal. IPM aims very high and may be demanding a level of performance well beyond what imperfect people living in an imperfect world can, or may even want to, deliver. Maybe IPM should be regarded as an ideal that goes too far. With this in mind, we present the following quotation, with which we would like to end this book. The Arab who builds temple in Palmyra is museums in London, —Anatole France

himself a hut out of the marble fragments of a more philosophical than all the curators of the Munich or Paris. (1844-1924), The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

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Index

Action thresholds, 41^2,147 Africa, IPM implementation in, 91-92 Agricultural industrialization (U.S.): evolution of IPM and, 62-68, 77-78; pest control and, 64-67; social status of farmers and, 67-68; "true" costs of farming methods and, 65-66 Agricultural interest groups, diversity of, 7 Agricultural research and development, 48-53, 68-72; agribusiness influence on, 67-68; dominance of pesticide industry in, 110; indigenous knowledge and, 52-53; innovation theory and, 68-69; international, 76-77; IPM paradigm in, 15-16; mechanistic ecology in, 49-50; poor adoption of IPM and, 113; scientists' agenda in, 144—145; specialization in, 7-8,127-128 Agricultural specialization, 8 Atkinson project, 74-75 Biological injury level (BIL), 38 Biotechnology, 118-121,126 Boll Weevil Research Laboratory (BWRL), 82 Carson, Rachel, 11, 65 Centro Internacional de Megoramiento de Maiz y Trigo (CIMMYT), 76 Clinton administration: IPM Initiative and, 17; sustainable agriculture and, 44 Computer technology, IPM implementation and, 121-125

Consortium for Integrated Pest Management (CIPM), 75, 83 Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), 77 Control threshold, versus economic threshold, 41—42 Cooperative Extension Service (CES), pilot pest management programs, 75 Cotton insect pest management, 80-84; entomological research in, 82-83; insecticide use in, 81-82; IPM success stories in, 83-84; preconditions for IPM implementation in, 83-84 Crop loss estimates, 8,129 Crop protection: applied ecology and, 4, 49-50; economic dimension in, 131; farmers' goals in, 124, 127-130; methods, 1, 91; postwar history of, 69-72; research, vertical and horizontal efforts in, 116-117; singlecontrol technologies in, 103; sociocentric (farmer-society first) approach in, 145-146, 149; technologies, 14e. See also Integrated Pest Control (IPC); Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Damage threshold, defined, 37 DDT, 10, 75 Developing countries: extension models in, 53-59; IPM cost-benefit analyses in, 133; IPM implementation in, 18-19, 77, 91-93, 106-107; IPM promotion in, 138-39; IPM successes in, 91-93; perceptions of farmers in, 114 167

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Index

Development aid: IPM implementation and, 16-17; pest management in, 49 Ecological Pest Management (EPM), 44-45 Ecological Theory and Integration Pest Management Practice, 50 Economic damage, defined, 37 Economic injury level (EIL), 37-41, 46, 131; environmental costs and, 133 Economic threshold (ET): versus action and control thresholds, 41^2,147; concept of, 36-37, 111; development and employment of, 42, 95-101; in IPM implementation, 95-101; objective versus subjective, 41—42 Ecosystem management, 48-53, 150 Entomological research, 72-76; government funding for, 74—75 Entomology, professionalization of, 73-74 Environmentalism: economic injury level and, 133; farmer-first approach and, 139-140; industrialization of agriculture and, 66-67; pest control versus pest management and, 31; pesticides and, 1, 10-11, 12, 65; as social dimension of IPM, 131 Extension systems: development models of, 53-59; farming systems research (FSR) model, 56-57, 58; international, 76-77; IPM nonadoption and, 112-113; scarcity of funding for, 53; training and visit (T&V) system, 54/, 55-56, 58; transfer of technology (TOT) model, 54-55, 58, 72; in United States, establishment of, 72 Farmer-first approach, 147; IPM and, 135-140; research model, 57; as rhetoric, 144,151 Farmers: agribusiness and, 67-68; attitudes toward IPM adoption, 113-115; in developing countries, stereotypes of, 114; diverse goals of, 124,127-130; indigenous knowledge of, 52-53; social status of, 67-68; true needs of, 117-118,129-130,143 Farming, professionalization of, 73. See also Agricultural industrialization Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), 15; definitions of pest

management, 20; International Code of Conduct on the Distribution and Use of Pesticides, 16 Ford Foundation, 76-77 Genetic engineering, IPM implementation and, 118-121 Green Revolution: exported technologies of, 77; Philippines rice production and, 88; social and economic impacts of, 85-86, 87 Harmonic control, 13 Hatch Act, 63, 72 Huffaker project, 74-75, 83 Indigenous knowledge, 52-53 Indonesia: IPM adoption in, 90-91; IPM farmer training in, 91; pesticide use in, 90; rice production in, 89-91 Insecticides. See Pesticide(s) Integrated Crop Management (ICM), 15 Integrated Disease Management, 15 Integrated Pest Control (IPC), 147; costs of, 141; distinguished from IPM, 14-15, 20-21, 51,104; theory, 12; widespread use of, 142 Integrated Pest Management (IPM): birth of, 61-62; concept, 1-2, 14-15; definitions of, 21-25,143-144; as dominant paradigm in crop protection, 1-2,14,15-16,145; economics of, 45-48, 132-34; ecosystem management and, 150; export of, 76-78; favorable implementation conditions in, 93-101; as government policy, 17; knowledge-intensive nature of, 27-29, 48-53, 138-139, 141-142; perceived adoption limitations of, 109-118, 125-126; pest management component of, 20, 25,141-143; pesticide-based approaches to, 34—36; versus pesticide management, 104; pesticide use and, 1,14, 33-45, 109-112,137; as philosophy 1, 14, 33-34,108; poor adoption of, 34-36, 104-107, 108-109; as profit-driven, 15; "real," 104,150; researchextension system and, 112-113; rhetoric of, 151; rice production and, 85-91; scientists' agenda and, 144-145; social dimensions of,

Index 131-132,150-151; system complexity as implementation constraint in, 115-116, 125-126, 142; tacticalstrategic axis model in, 43-44, 50-51, 103; technical and environmental emphasis of, 138-139; technocentric nature of, 148-149; technology integration component of, 19-20, 25; training needs in, 112; in United States, 75-76, 108-109; "women friendly" nature of, 132 Interdisciplinary teams, 128-129 International Agricultural Research Centre (IARC), network and extention system, 87 International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), 77, 87, 88, 89 Internet World Wide Web, 4, 122, 124-125 IPC. See Integrated Pest Control IPM. See Integrated Pest Management Latin America, IPM implementation obstacles in, 92 Local knowledge, 52-53 Mexico, international agricultural research in, 76-77 Monitoring and sampling: labor costs, 45-48, 133-134; methods, 46-47 Monoculture, IPM implementation and, 84,94 Morrill Land Grant Acts, 63, 72 National IPM Forum, 75 Nixon administration, 75 Overseas Development Administration (ODA), IPM strategy, 16 Pest control: agricultural industrialization and, 62-68; development and evolution of, 9-15; versus pest management, 14—15, 20-21, 25-31, 43-44; "respect for nature" and, 31; social issues in, 30, 31, 131-132, 150-151; technological evolution in, 8-15. See also Integrated Pest Control (IPC) Pest management: knowledge-intensive nature of, 27-29; versus pest control, 14-15, 20-21, 25-31,43-44; social

169

issues in, 30, 31,131-132, 150-151; spatial dimension of, 29-30; use of term, 13-14, 20. See also Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Pest monitoring: labor costs of, 45—48, 133-134; sampling methods in, 4647 Pesticide(s): application thresholds, 38-42; environmental problems and, 1, 10-11, 12, 65; evolution of, 11; IPM and, 1, 14, 33-45; management (tactical IPM), 147; organic, 9-12; problems with, 10-11, 81-82, 88; synthetic, 81; in Third World development process, 109-110 Pesticide industry: agricultural research and development role of, 110; Green Revolution and, 87; IPM and, 36; pesticide barrage of, 110-112; subsidies, 111 Philippines: Green Revolution technologies and, 87, 88; nonadoption of IPM in, 88-89; problems with pesticide use in, 88 Research. See Agricultural research and development Rice production, 84-91; in Indonesia, 89-91; IPM adoption in, 85-91; IPM success factors in, 85; in the Philippines, 87-89 Rockefeller Foundation, 76-77 Silent Spring, 11, 65 Smith-Lever Act, 72 Social issues: in IPM implementation, 131-132, 150-151; pest control versus pest management and, 30, 31 Sole cropping, IPM implementation and, 94 Sudan, IPM implementation in, 91-92 Sustainable agriculture, 14-15; biotechnology and, 119; Clinton administration and, 44; IPM and, 34 Technological innovation theories, 68-69 Technologies, crop protection, 11, 14/ Technology integration. See Integrated pest control Transfer of technology model, 112, 137

170

Index

United Kingdom, IPM implementation in, 95-101 United States: agricultural industrialization of, 62-68; establishment of agricultural extension in, 72; IPM implementation goals in, 75-76; poor adoption of IPM in, 108-109; postwar agricultural

policies, 70-72; sustainable agriculture commitment in, 44 United States Department of Agriculture, IPM Initiative, 17, 76 World Bank: IPM implementation and, 17; pesticide selection and use criteria, 111

About the Book

Since its inception in the 1960s, Integrated Pest Management (IPM) has become the dominant paradigm in crop protection. Its ecological approach—involving a minimum use of pesticides—has accounted for much of its popularity, and it has been widely adopted by a range of development agencies. This book outlines some of the classic IPM success stories (primarily from North America) and contrasts them with the results obtained in developing countries. Conventional explanations for IPM's failure in developing countries focus on problems with extension, farmer cooperation, funding, government direction, or even conspiracy by the pesticide industry. In contrast, Morse and Buhler demonstrate that the main reason for the poor performance of IPM has more to do with the nature of IPM itself. A product of agricultural industrialization, IPM may be effective in the context of large-scale industrial farming, argue the authors, but it is not suitable for resource-poor farmers operating on a relatively small scale. Stephen Morse and William Buhler are both at the School of Development Studies, East Anglia (England).

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