FORK IN THE ROAD

"Fork in the Road"
Pest Mangement at the Crossroads

Reviewed by Len Richardson
American Agriculturist Feb. 1997

Some 34 years have passed since Rachel Carson's book, "Silent Spring," set off a firestorm of public awareness about the hazards of pesticides. In a rash of books since, each one describes an ever more frightening poisoning of the planet.

Standing in stark contrast to this always "worse news" is a new Consumers Union (CU) book, " Pest Management at the Crossroads" (PMAC). It is about solutions and stresses the need for a systems approach in managing pests. Its portrays a fork in the road and draws a road map for an alternative route called Integrated Pest Management (IPM).

An authority on pesticide policy, lead author, Chuck Benbrook was the executive director of the National Academy of Sciences' Board on Agriculture when it published "Regulating Pesticides in Food -- The Delaney Paradox" in 1987.

Farmers who want to make a turn down this road will find chapters on "The Nature of IPM" and "Biointensive IPM and the IPM Continuum" the most helpful. This is because they draw examples from the experience of real successes and failures. IPM, the book explains, is actually a continuum of systems, with levels ranging from "low" to "high". Each level is distinguished by the extent to which ecological and biological methods of pest control replace chemical pesticiedes. High IPM, also called "biointensive" IPM, is the pinnnacle, relying on reduced-risk pesticides only when other, non-chemical measures fall short. PMAC calls for bringing 75% of all crop acreage under "medium" and "high" IPM by 2010, and 100% under "high" by 2020.

The book makes clear that a central feature of biointensive IPM is a reliance on information from making timely managment decisions. Thus, a great feature of this book is the display of dozens of World Wide Web (WWW) sources for IPM information.

PMAC proposes and CU endorses a number of multiple strategies to reach the stated goal. Key are:

A doubling of USDA research and education IPM funding over the next five fiscal years.
That USDA and Cooperative Extension should emphasize training in biointensive IPM.
That food processors, grower cooperatives and USDA should offer incentives and reewards to help farmers accelerate their progress toward biointensive IPM.

But a more sobering fact is likely to nudge farmers at this fork in the road to take a new direction down the IPM highway:"It takes from two to five applications of pesticides today to accomplish what just one application accomplished in the early 1970s".

To obtain a copy of Pest Management at the Crossroads, send a check or money order for $35.95 to: Pest Management at the Crossroads, PO Box 2013, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701-2013