I always enrolled in the concept of IPM. However, with 22 years of experience working on agricultural pest management with the National Institute for Agricultural Technology, I ended up realizing that the IPM concept, once delivered to the end users, turns into a soft concept that some actors can use lightly and missleadingly. Pretty much the same as with the sustainability concept. Furthermore, as we get more and more restricted by the huge adoption of the comfortable technology-in-the-seed approach, which is super advertised by the agrichemical & seed industry, we are gradually drawn into an ever increasing narrow view of IPM as just a rational pesticide management technique. Just a thought to discuss about.
The concept of IPM can be checked in a few ways. From a scientific point of view, it has a definite definition that is identical to those skilled in the world, but different from the point of view of governments. In some countries like Iran, the economy in agriculture is the focus of the sale of pesticides, so making it difficult for plant protection practitioners. Farmers only pay attention to the recommendations that encourage them to consume more chemical fertilizers and pesticides for maximum use, and This has led that farmers ignored the IPM concept and its application.
The concept of IPM can be checked in a few ways. From a scientific point of view, it has a definite definition that is identical to those skilled in the world, but different from the point of view of governments. In some countries like Iran, the economy in agriculture is the focus of the sale of pesticides, so making it difficult for plant protection practitioners. Farmers only pay attention to the recommendations that encourage them to consume more chemical fertilizers and pesticides for maximum use, and This has led that farmers ignored the IPM concept and its application.
You may wish to read about the new and emerging concept of phytobiome, a term that encompasses plants, the environment they inhabit, and the surrounding community of organisms. A Core Concept paper has been published on the concept recently in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). Please find the link below:
http://www.pnas.org/content/114/34/8900.full
There is a consortium or alliance formed around the concept, Phytobiome Alliance.
An excerpt from the alliance's website Phytobiomes as "Networks of interactions among plants, their environment, and complex communities of organisms profoundly influence plant and agroecosystem health and productivity". Read more here (http://www.phytobiomes.org/Pages/default.aspx).
There is also a journal associated with the concept, Phytobiomes Journal (https://apsjournals.apsnet.org/loi/pbiomes), published by The American Phytopathological Society (APS).
Regards,
Alcade
Theoretically IPM, being a combination of pest management measures with the tendency to minimize (not zeroing) chemical input, is meant to rather be a broad spectrum pest management practice. Yet in practice a lot of people misuse it as a biological control management, which is not. This is apparently the soft version which takes mainly consideration of the impact on beneficials. On the other hand companies tend to incorporate as many chemical products as possible to the system, which is the hard version focusing mainly on efficiency/efficacy, low residues and formulation technology. Ideally a balance would be the target
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