The Adoption Of Integrated Pest Management Technologies By Vegetable Growers

It is an edited book with chapters written by multi-disciplinary specialists in their specific subject areas. It covers development of IPM components and packaging them for individual vegetable crops specifically targeted to tropical countries. Scientific background for IPM components or tactics will be included. There will be case studies of IPM packages developed and implemented in different countries. The concept of IPM has been in existence for the past six decades; however, a practical holistic program has not been developed and implemented for vegetable crops, in the developing countries. Currently the IPM adoption rate in the tropics is minimal and there is a need for implementation of IPM technologies that are environmentally safe, economical, and socially acceptable. We believe that adoption and implementation of IPM provided in this book will lead to significant reduction in crop losses and mitigate adverse impacts of pesticide use in the tropics. This book is an outcome 20 years of research, development and implementation of the IPM CRSP, a project supported by USAID and administered by Virginia Tech in several developing countries along the tropical belt in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. ​

As food demand has grown worldwide, agricultural production has intensified with a concomitant expansion in pesticide use. Concerns over pesticide-induced health and environmental problems, increased pest resistance to pesticides, and continued losses due to pests, have stimulated the search for alternative pest management solutions. As a result integrated pest management (IPM) approaches have been developed and applied that rely on genetic, cultural, biological and information-intensive pest management alternatives. This book presents and critiques the participatory approaches that can be used to globalize IPM. It describes the development, deployment, and evaluation of participatory IPM. All the chapters include perspectives from both the US and developing country scientists who are on the front lines of IPM generation and diffusion. The book is unique amongst IPM books in that it stresses policy analysis, social and economic impact assessment, multidisciplinary field research and technology transfer mechanisms.

The book deals with the present state and problems of integrated pest management (IPM) as relating to stakeholder acceptance of IPM and how IPM can become a sustainable practice. The book covers the implementation of integrated pest management in USA, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Netherlands, China, India, Indonesia, Australia, Africa, and its impact in reducing pesticide use in agriculture. The book also deals with the impact of transgenic crops on pesticide use.

Integrated Pest Management – Dissemination and Impact, Volume 2 is a sequel to Integrated Pest Management – Innovation-DevelopmentProcess, Volume 1. The book focuses on the IPM systems in the developed countries of North America, Europe and Australia, and the developing countries of Asia, Latin America and Africa. One of the major impedimentsin the dissemination and adoption of the IPM innovation is the complexity of the technology and reaching the vast population of farmers especially in the developing countries. The IPM-innovation development process is incomplete without the diffusion and adoption of IPM methods by the end users, and through its consequences. In spite of all the efforts in the developed and developing countries, the adoption of IPM is still low with few exceptions. The book covers the underlying concepts and methodologies of the diffusion of innovation theory and the program evaluation; and reviews the progress and impact of IPM programs implemented in the industrialized, the green revolution and the subsistence agricultural systems of the world. Forty-four experts from entomology, plant pathology, environmental science, agronomy, anthropology, economics and extensioneducationfromAfrica, Asia, Australia, Europe,NorthAmerica and South America have discussed impact of IPM with an interdisciplinary perspective. Each one of the experts is an authority in his or her eld of expertise. The researchers, farmers’education,supportingpoliciesofthegovernmentsandmarketforcesarethe elements of the IPM innovation system to achieve wider adoption of IPM strategy in agriculture.