My Answer:
Integrated Pest Management (IPM), properly defined, refers to an “approach which first assesses the pest situation, evaluates the merits of pest management options and then implements a system of complementary management actions within a defined area. The objective of IPM is to mitigate pest damage while protecting human health, the environment and economic viability.”
For an integrated pest management to effectively support prospective thrusts and undertakings on ecological (read: agricultural) sustainability and biodiversity conservation, it must be able to define important components that will provide structure to the planning and implementation of the IPM.
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture has defined six components to their IPM: planning, setting action thresholds, monitoring and detection, proper identification, action/implementation, and evaluation of results.
The component of planning takes on a proactive stance. Elemental to this component is the idea of being clear about specific objectives that shall provide framework to the conceptualization of an IPM. These objectives are anchored upon available data on the history of the pests and the structure of the site. With these considerations being made part of the planning, effective pest management may be resorted to in both the short term and the long term implementation of an IPM and education or expert advice may be sought where needed.
The setting of action thresholds takes on the premise that the implementation of an IPM is not without risk. Action thresholds must be based on realistic triggers that can serve as bases for management action in case of actual damages. Such action thresholds must define both the nature and extent of unacceptable damage – like aesthetics, economics, health considerations, nuisance, and other such elements that may be deemed constitutive of unacceptable damage determined from both personal and social values. It must be noted however that action thresholds vary relative to the dynamics of certain pests and the situation of their habitat. For which reason, the identification of realistic triggers must be made reflective of this dynamics and the factors that figure in the equation.
The IPM component of monitoring and detection has the objective of providing meaningful assessment of the site and the pests that inhabit it and being able to make recommendations on the nature of the pest and the extent of its influence over the place. Early detection of pests, their distribution patterns and their number will certainly help in initiating timely management decisions.
Proper identification is another important component of an IPM. Through this component, biology of the pest is noted and profiled. Without doubt, improper identification may lead to misdirected pest management efforts and may result to ineffective pest control and significant yield loss. Proper identification of pests has the objective of gathering information about the pests’ life cycle, their habits, and their physiology and with the end-in-view of identifying their weak links which serve as possible points of control and regulation.
The praxis of an IPM comes in the component of action and implementation. In this component, decisions as to which management option (biological control, cultural control, chemical control, or genetic control) is to be implemented, is reached. It is important however to note that any management option will have its “good” and “bad” effects on both humans and the environment. On this account therefore, decisions and actions on an IPM’s implementation have to be a case in which the benefits are calculated to far-outweigh the risks.
The last component of an IPM includes the evaluation of results. In this component, data that were gathered throughout the entire duration of the IPM’s implementation will be evaluated on account of its strengths and weaknesses. Results must be able to show in what aspects the IPM succeeded and in what aspects it failed. These results should be able to provide a proactive basis for future planning of IPM’s.
In summary, Integrated Pest Management is a system or a program whose objective is the mitigation of the impact of pests over a certain agricultural domain. It is designed to provide insights as to the nature of the pest, its ecological influence, and its mode of control. With these information about the pest, it is surmised that calibrated decision may be used to rid the domain of the pest but that, such decision should be of very limited harm to the other components of the environment that are rendered beneficial and to human health as well. On this account, integrated pest management is rendered supportive of sustainability – if by sustainability is meant the carrying out of a system that works in favor of the beneficial components and that works against the pests that are the subject of an IPM, and conservation of biodiversity – if by conservation is meant the protection of the natural microbial flora and fauna of a particular domain allowed only by the mitigation of the influence of pests whose proliferation harms the other ecological components.
No comments:
Post a Comment