Integrated Pest Management – Strategies and Tradeoffs for long-term crop health and livestock management

Abstract

Agricultural pests are damaging to our crops and livestock. Pest management involves a number of strategies to mitigate the damage caused by pests in the field. While some control strategies are effective, others need to be revisited for their efficacy and environmental impact. This review article is focused on integrated pest management programs that have been developed and adopted by farmers around the world. Integrated pest management involves a number of biological control and chemical control strategies, each with their inherent tradeoffs and associated costs. It is important to discuss these tradeoffs to understand the efficacy of each pest control strategy which can be adopted in a given field. It is worth noting that there is no unified solution that works best for all crops and livestock. Rather a holistic approach is needed combining the One Health mission and integration of all pest management strategies to come up with a workable solution. Awareness among farmers about the evolving research in integrated pest management is also important to ensure transfer of knowledge and early adoption in the farms. This review highlights the various biological and chemical control strategies under the umbrella of integrated pest management.