United States
| Environmental Protection
Agency
Pesticides
vvEPA integrated
Pfest
Management
from Concept
to Reality
,
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Integrated Pest Management
from Concept to Reality
Remarks by
Steven D. Jellinek
Assistant Administrator for Toxic Substances
United States Environmental Protection Agency
before the
State of California Integrated Pest Management
Conference
December 7. 1977
Sacramento. California
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I appreciate this opportunity to participate in the State of
California's Integrated Pest Management Conference.
This Conference is designed to explore many of the
most fundamental topics on integrated pest management
facing farmers, researchers, educators, government
officials, and others today. Those who conceived, planned.
and sponsored this event deserve our congratulations for
their comprehensive approach.
This Conference demonstrates once again that
California—the Nation's richest agricultural state—is a
national leader in promoting—and using—innovative
agricultural techniques like integrated pest management,
or IPM.
As the planners of this Conference know, it is no
coincidence that high agricultural productivity and the
application of new technology go hand in hand.
1PM is not new, however. 1PM methods of one kind or
another have been used for years—and farmers tend to get
a little annoyed, and understandably so, when government
bureaucrats talk about "integrated pest management" as if
it is the first agricultural improvement since the horse-
drawn plow.
Ecologically oriented pest-control strategies were
pursued in the United States long before today's
widespread use of petroleum-based pesticides.
Entomologists working on the boll weevil during the first
few years after its invasion into this country from Mexico
in the early 1890s, for example, made exceptional
contributions. Without insecticides, they employed tactics
that included use of resistant varieties, phytosanitation
practices, and various biological controls. While we do not
know how effective this system was by today's standards.
it was effective enough to be used even after calcium
arsenate was introduced in the early 1920s.
As we all know, the advent of petroleum-based
pesticides, along with aerial applications, halted or greatly
reduced the use of ecologically oriented pest control
techniques in cotton and other crops.
Today, there are some very good reasons for us to take a
new look at some of these past practices to control pests
and stimulate agricultural production and productivity.
We are beginning to sec that there are limits to the
advances that chemical pesticides have created. IPM
techniques—vastly improved and expanded in recent
years—offer one way to go beyond these limits, to better
serve a world that is constantly in need of more food.
A number of factors suggest that there are sound
economic, social, agricultural, and public health reasons
for exploring and utilizing alternatives, substitutes, and
supplements to petrochemical-based pesticides:
First, petroleum-based pesticides have become, and will
continue to be, dramatically more expensive. Eighty
percent of the billion pounds of pesticides used in the
United States each year are petrochemically based—that
is, the active ingredient is a petroleum derivative. This
figure does not include pesticides whose production or
extraction processes require petroleum-based solvents.
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nor does it account for the use of petrochemicals as "inert"
ingredients in non-petrochemical pesticides.
Second, the ability of pests to develop resistance to
chemicals continues to erode the effectiveness of
conventional pesticides. As California farmers know very
well, scores of insect species no longer succumb to the
chemicals that were originally designed to eliminate them.
Other pests have become economically important because
chemicals have eliminated their natural enemies.
And third, there is growing public concern over health and
environmental hazards resulting from the extensive use of
chemical pesticides. Science is improving our ability to
identify and quantify these health and environmental
risks, thereby generating a constantly growing body of
hard evidence to back up this public concern.
There is an extraordinary consensus on these points, as
illustrated by the following three views:
President Carter's Environmental Message to Congress
last May encouraged pest management techniques that
"emphasize the use of natural biological controls like
predators, pest-specific diseases, pest-resistant varieties.
and hormones."
Secretary of Agriculture Bob Bcrgland. in a speech last
September before the National Agricultural Chemicals
Association, or NACA, stressed the Department's
leadership role in offering American farmers an alternative
to applying pesticides to crops at set intervals. He said that
USDA will "give special emphasis to the development and
use of alternative tactics in integrated pest management
systems."
NACA's own policy is to "endorse and urge support of
programs that have as their ultimate objectives the
achievement of pest suppression based on sound
ecological principles that integrate chemical, biological.
and cultural methods into a practical program, where
necessary and when possible."
And EPA, under the Federal Insecticide. Fungicide.
and Rodcnticide Act and the new Toxic Substances
Control Act of 1976, is firmly committed to reducing the
serious health and environmental risks created by
hazardous chemical substances.
As the President's Environmental Message also said:
"The presence of toxic chemicals in our environment is
one of the grimmest discoveries of the industrial era.
Rather than coping with these hazards after 'hey have
escaped into our environment, our primary objective must
be to prevent them from entering the environment at all."
1PM is an important component in these goals. It is an
environmentally protective approach to meeting our needs
for food and fiber. It is an approach that emphasizes the
use of natural control factors and de-emphasizes the rote
use of chemical pesticides. It does not mean the
elimination of chemicals from the farmer's battery of tools
to control pests. It does mean emphasis on using a variety
of tools for pest control- not for pest eradication.
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Some people contend that the IPM revival is simply a
return to past practices that cannot meet today's needs.
Those who question the current interest in IPM
development charge that its proponents are rediscovering
techniques that many wise farmers have known about for
years, and that farmers do not want to go back to methods
that were overtaken by the development of effective and
economical pesticides.
The present concept of IPM, however, does not mean a
return of the hoe and mule.
As an advanced scientific system. IPM relies on the best
experience of many disciplines to develop modern pest
management strategies that are practical, effective.
economical, and protective of both public health and the
environment. Classical farming practices such as use of
pest-resistant varieties, crop rotation, irrigation
techniques, and tilling methods certainly are important
components of 1PM. But these techniques must be
coupled with modern strategies possible through
sophisticated scientific, economic, and technical skills.
Foremost among these new strategies is awareness of
the status of each pest problem at a given time. The
temporal and localized nature of pest management
programs require a carefully tuned and sensitive approach
that uses knowledge and information about the pest itself.
the condition of the host, the prevailing climatic factor.
the potential for biological and natural controls, and the
proper timing of chemical application.
While we still have a lot to learn from research, many of
the means necessary to implement 1PM strategies are
available and are being used. Others will become
accessible in the near future. But none of this will count if
farmers fail to adopt IPM techniques and instead rely
wholly on chemicals as crop "insurance." Farmers are
realistic business people. They need hard evidence from a
credible source that IPM will produce adequate pest
control and be economically feasible. The evidence is
there, and it is growing.
The fact is, integrated pest management programs,
employing 1PM consultants, almost always save growers
more money in insecticide application costs, as opposed to
conventional chemical control, than the cost of their
services.
Large-scale field programs have demonstrated the
practical feasibility of using IPM on major agricultural
crops. These have demonstrated that there is no reduction
in crop yield or quality, and that greater net profits can be
realized than would have been possible with conventional
pesticide-control programs.
In 1970 and 1971, for example, two California crops-
cotton and oranges- provided some of the best evidence
of IPM feasibility. Using services of IPM consultants.
cotton growers in San Joaquin Valley saved, relative to
conventional control costs, 53 cents per acre in 1970 and
S8.62 per acre in 1971 on insect control, including 1PM
consultant fees. Also in San Joaquin Valley, orange
growers showed relative savings of nearly $2 per acre
annually over this 2-year period. Growers who did not use
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IPM consultant services spent more than twice as much on
insecticides in these same years.
Other, more recent examples illustrate that 1PM is more
effective, less costly, and less hazardous to people and the
environment than pesticide-based, conventional pest-
control strategies. But IPM development and
implementation continue to move at a snail's pace. Only a
small percentage of U.S. farmers have adopted modern
1PM technology. For the most part, IPM has been used
only in areas where high levels of insecticide resistance
have developed in insect pests, thereby forcing farmers to
seek alternative solutions to conventional pesticides.
Even in California, surveys indicate that IPM has not
been used to any significant degree, except perhaps in a
few resource categories such as certain parts of the citrus
industry, certain cotton districts, and pears.
A variety of factors contribute to this slow development
and implementation. Although many researchers have
made significant contributions to IPM, there remains a
widespread lack of understanding and support for
multidisciplinary IPM reseaich and for companion
educational and demonstration programs. Also, there still
are a number of major crops for which reliable IPM
techniques have not been developed. This work will
require more researchers, educators, and others who really
understand the IPM concept.
Even when an IPM strategy is developed, it is very
difficult to translate its advantages and necessity to
farmers and others, including commercial credit
institutions, who often remain bound to chemical control
techniques by faith and tradition. Many perceive the risk
from pest damage to be much higher than is warranted by
actual circumstances. They continue to use pesticides on a
preventive, often needless schedule as a form of insurance
rather than risk making a wrong decision based on actual
need. This use is fostered by those who traditionally
provide the information that growers use to make
decisions on pesticide use.
Farmers in California, for example, receive most of
their pest-control advice from salesmen representing
chemical pesticide companies. This is true in other states,
too. Recent studies of California cotton farming
concluded that only one percent of the control
information originates with farm advisors from the
agricultural extension service; in 70 percent of the cases,
insect problem-solving decisions originate with chemical
company employees. Pest management consultants are
used in only 17 percent of the decisions.
Nationally, there will be about 200.000 registered
commercial applicators of pesticides in 1978. These
include aerial applicators, pest control operators, and
others who apply pesticides for hire. By comparison, there
arc only about 500 extension specialists at public
institutions with assignments in the areas of crop and
animal health, including 1PM. In addition, perhaps
several hundred private consultants are working
independently or for farm service firms and farmers'
cooperatives to provide advice and make
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recommendations on IPM. Most of the latter have been in
practice fewer than 5 years.
As a former employee of the Council on Environmental
Quality, I have been interested in IPM since the Council's
1972 report on the subject. At EPA, I am now able to help
implement the concepts and policies recommended in that
report and by CEQ's forthcoming new report on 1PM. I
am looking forward to working with CEQ, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, the land-grant university
system, and the states in promoting the adoption of
integrated pest management. There are at least three
specific areas where I think EPA can have direct impact:
1. Scientific Research and Demonstration. IPM is a leap
forward, not a step backward, using science and
technology to work synergistically with nature's enormous
productivity. EPA recognizes the lead role that the
Department of Agriculture and the states must play in
promoting IPM research and demonstration. But in close
coordination with USDA and the states, EPA can also
play an important role in this critical area. I am sure that
many of you are familiar with the Huffaker project at the
University of California, Berkeley, which has received
about $7 million from EPA over the last 5 years and about
$7 million from the National Science Foundation. We
should continue to support this kind of research on IPM
techniques.
2. Regulation. EPA has a mandate to review all
pesticides—both chemical and non-chemical—to insure
that they do not cause "unreasonable adverse effects on
the environment." Obviously, ways to reduce risks from
pesticides are an important consideration in arriving at
our regulatory decisions. In our attempts to weigh the
risks and benefits of a chemical's use, any approach that
reduces exposure and risks to the point where the benefits
prevail should be given serious consideration. IPM may
provide just that approach. It may well be possible to
continue a use of a given pesticide—one that might
otherwise be cancelled—if continued use is carried out at
significantly reduced levels as part of an IPM program.
EPA recently issued two emergency exemptions—both
involving experimental compounds for use in pears and
cotton—contingent upon users adopting basic IPM
techniques. We expect to do more of this in the future.
3. Information and Implementation. EPA is exploring a
variety of concepts with the Department of Agriculture
and with the states to speed the advancement of sound
IPM programs. These include infusing information on
IPM into the training and certification program, joint
information programs and data systems, as well as more
demonstration projects. Also, the Federal Government
needs to fully examine—in conjunction with the
Department of Agriculture's existing crop insurance
program—the potential benefits of a new program to
insure farmers against pest damage if they follow an
approved IPM program.
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No single Federal or state agency can make IPM work.
We must all contribute. Collaborative effort,.' R&D and
demonstration projects, regulatory strategies, and
educational programs must be made to accelerate the
transfer of IPM technology from laboratory and field tests
to widespread use. Practical data on 1PM techniques are
needed—better knowledge of the life cycles and habits of
pests, of their natural enemies, of cultural practices, of
scouting, of more efficient timing of chemical control, and
so on. Farmers need to know what's in it for them before
they can be expected to adopt an integrated system rather
than continue their heavy reliance on chemical controls.
I think thai it is equally important that government not
compete with the private sector in providing IPM
consultative services. The day must come when IPM will
be as vigorously marketed and sold by the private sector as
chemical pesticides have been in the past.
As demands for commercial IPM services grow, the
university system will increasingly be challenged lo offer
innovative training programs especially designed for
students entering this work, and to make sure that
commercial consultants have the latest information in
IPM technology.
Further, as state and Federal governments and
professional societies move toward requiring greater
professionalism of those who deliver services in pest
control and IPM consulting, the demand for university-
trained IPM specialists will increase. Several universities
already offer B.S. and M.S. degrees specializing in IPM.
More such programs will be needed.
Meeting the challenges I have just reviewed will not be
easy. Today's demands upon agricultural specialists
require new visions of the field and its problems. I look
forward to working with you as we conceive and develop
new ways to stimulate safe, economical, and productive
improvements in our Nation's agriculture.
United Stales Office of
Environmental Protection Public Awareness (A-1071
Agency Washington D C 20460
Official Business Postage and
Penalty for Private Use Fees Paid
$300 Environmental
Protection
Agency
EPA 335
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