The Future of Integrated Pest Management

Abstract

On first impression it would seem that a rapid and widescale implementation of integrated pest management is an inevitable eventuality. This is a logical assumption when we realize that in comparison to the prevailing chemical control strategy, IPM is more effective, less costly, and less hazardous to man and the environment. 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. 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 or resource production.