Integrated pest management: Ready for export?

Abstract

The United States (USA) has played a major role in the development of integrated pest management (IPM) for over 35 years and continues to export the “IPM philosophy” through a host of international development projects. An evaluation of IPM, in historical context, seems appropriate if future constraints to development of domestic IPM programs and foreign export of IPM ideologies are to be identified. The structure of institutions that develop and deliver IPM is as important, if not more so, as the list of IPM tactics and strategies produced. Why is there a well‐developed menu of IPM tactics and virtually no ecologically based strategies for the deliberate, concerted use of multiple tactics against communities of pests? What are the global constraints to further development of IPM? Why do land‐grant universities struggle so hard with the functional end of inter‐disciplinarily—both domestically and in foreign “development”? How has the land‐grant system evolved since its establishment by the Morrill acts in the 1860s, and how has that evolution imposed on IPM research, extension, teaching, and international development? How has government policy impacted mandates of land‐grant institutions and thus their exports, like IPM? What kind of faculty do land‐grant institutions hire and why? How do the other global models of research‐extension compare to the land‐grant model when imposed through international projects? IPM represents an attitude about pests. Its ideals cross discipline boundaries; yet, its practice appears totally discipline dependent. IPM is an excellent tool for exploring evolutionary history, structures, ideas, practices, successes, and failures of the institutional models (e.g., the land‐grant system) trying to develop and deliver it. With a heightened societal agenda for conservation, sustainability, and environmental sanctity, it seems pertinent to explore where we are in IPM, how we got here, and to ask, “Is everything all right?” It is pertinent also to ask, “Is IPM sufficiently well developed to be exported?”