Integrated Pest Management (IPM)

Why in news?

The recent launch of Kisan Kavach marks a significant advancement in protecting farmers from the harmful effects of pesticide exposure.

• IPM – It is a sustainable approach to managing pests by combining biological, cultural, physical, and chemical tools in a way that minimizes economic, health, and environmental risks.
• Different from organic practices – IPM doesn't discourage spraying chemicals unlike organic, but rather promotes using them only when necessary.

• Monitoring – Keep tracks of the pests and their potential damage and is helpful in selecting the best possible combinations of the pest management methods.
• Pest resistant varieties – Breeding for pest resistance is a continuous process.
• Cultural pest control – It includes crop production practices that make crop environment less susceptible to pests.
• Cultural controls are based on pest biology and development.
  • For examples – Crop rotation, cover crop, row and plant spacing, planting and harvesting dates, destruction of old crop debris, etc.,
• Mechanical control – These are based on the knowledge of pest behaviour.
  • For Examples – Hand picking, installation of bird perches, mulching and installation of traps.
• Biological control – It include augmentation and conservation of natural enemies of pests such as insect predators, parasitoids, pathogen and weed feeders.
• Here, native natural enemy populations are conserved and non-native agents are released with utmost caution.
• Chemical control – Pesticides are used to keep the pest population below economically damaging levels when the pests cannot be controlled by other means.

According to Indian Council of Agricultural Research-National Centre for Integrated Pest Management around 3-5% of India’s total cultivated area is under IPM.

References

1. Government of Assam | Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
2. PIB | Bharat’s First Anti-Pesticide Bodysuit