Integrated Pest Management in the Global Arena
K. M. Maredia, D. Dakouo, and D. Mota-Sanchez
CABI Publishing, Wallingford, U.K., and Cambridge, MA
2003, 512 pages
Price: $149, hard cover
ISBN: 0-85199-652-3
Integrated Pest Management in the Global Arena is a large book of 39
contributed chapters and more than 500 pages of text. Despite the wide
range of topics and the numerous contributing authors, the book is
generally well written and worth reading in its entirety or piecemeal by
focusing on specific topics.
The book has four sections. Part 1 includes eight chapters discussing a
wide range of emerging issues in IPM. The largest section of the book,
with 20 chapters, is the second part, which details experiences in
individual countries. Large geographic regions are grouped together by
similarities in climate and sociopolitical factors. The third part
describes the IPM experiences of different international agencies
working to promote and develop IPM. Part 4 brings the diverse topics set
out in the prior chapters to a conclusion and includes recommendations
for promoting the global success of IPM. As might be expected given the
number of programs and agencies discussed, a lot of jargon and acronyms
are used throughout the book. Fortunately, the editors include in the
front of the book a nearly complete glossary of acronyms and
abbreviations.
Part 1 of the book, dealing with issues in IPM, is not designed to be a
stand-alone text on the topic. However, it does give a good overview of
issues ranging from biological control to biotechnology and introduces
the importance of policy change and sustainable development to the
success of IPM. A major contribution in this section, and in the rest of
the book, is the attention paid to social, political, and gender issues.
The point is made that IPM technologies, no matter what their potential
for effective pest management, often fail unless they have relevance to
the accompanying social structures of the end users and consumers. These
are topics not generally covered in other IPM books.
The experiences of the different countries reported in Part 2 were
extremely varied. Most of the chapters in this section provide an
overview of the political and environmental conditions prior to adopting
IPM and of the issues that resulted in a change in policy from promoting
pesticide use to a more balanced IPM policy.
Although the need for effective pest management was a common factor
leading to the adoption of IPM policy and programs, it was often not the
sole or even major motivation. For example, in Indonesia, pest issues in
rice production threatened rice self-sufficiency. In the Philippines,
farm profitability was a goal; and for several West African nations,
reducing the cost of off-farm purchased inputs for agricultural
production motivated a move to IPM. Although the situation in each
country was unique and each country’s motivation for adapting IPM was
specific, there was a common need for policy change and attention to
social structure. In most locations, IPM adoption relied on some
variation of farmer field schools to build support for the new
technologies.
On reading the third section, I was struck by how bureaucratic many of
the international programs dealing with IPM are. Despite this,
international organizations have made progress in promoting and building
IPM capacity around the world. A number of the agencies are not
interested in IPM as a stand-alone program, but see IPM as critical to
their mission of promoting sustainable agricultural and social systems
in their host countries.
The final chapter and last section of the book summarizes and highlights
the commonalities of the preceding chapters and very briefly concludes
by introducing some of the trends and challenges that need to be
addressed before IPM is globally adopted.
This book should be a welcome reference for researchers and extension
personnel across disciplines, as well as for policy makers in government
and nongovernment organizations working to promote IPM and sustainable
agriculture. The reader can select any chapter and find a relevant
discussion of IPM. As someone who teaches an IPM class, I found several
new ideas and novel presentations of concepts that I will include in my
lectures.
Gary J. Brewer
Department of Entomology
North Dakota State University
Fargo, ND 58105
gary.brewer@ndsu.edu
American Entomologist
Vol. 51, No.3, Fall 2005
|
