Environmental Pest Management

Challenges for Agronomists, Ecologists, Economists and Policymakers

Moshe Coll, Eric Wajnberg, Moshe Coll, Eric Wajnberg

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781119255550
• eBook ISBN: 9781119255598
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Environmental Science
• Index: Biological Sciences

A wide-ranging, interdisciplinary exploration of key topics that interrelate pest management, public health and the environment

This book takes a unique, multidimensional approach to addressing the complex issues surrounding pest management activities and their impacts on the environment and human health, and environmental effects on plant protection practices.

It features contributions by a distinguished group of authors from ten countries, representing an array of disciplines. They include plant protection scientists and officers, economists, agronomists, ecologists, environmental and public health scientists and government policymakers. Over the course of eighteen chapters, those experts share their insights into and analyses of an array of issues of vital concern to everyone with a professional interest in this important subject.

The adverse effects of pest control have become a subject of great concern worldwide, and researchers and enlightened policymakers have at last begun to appreciate the impact of environmental factors on our ability to manage pest populations. Moreover, while issues such as pesticide toxicity have dominated the global conversation about pest management, economic and societal considerations have been largely neglected. Environmental Pest Management: Challenges for Agronomists, Ecologists, Economists and Policymakers is the first work to provide in-depth coverage of all of these pressing issues between the covers of one book.

• Offers a unique multi-dimensional perspective on the complex issues surrounding pest management activities and their effect on the environment and human health
• Addresses growing concerns about specific pest management strategies, including the use of transgenic crops and biological controls
• Analyses the influence of global processes, such as climate change, biological invasions and shifts in consumer demand, and ecosystem services and disservices on pest suppression efforts
• Explores public health concerns regarding biodiversity, pesticide use and food safety
• Identifies key economic drivers of pest suppression research, strategies and technologies
• Proposes new regulatory approaches to create sustainable and viable crop protection systems in the framework of agro-environmental schemes

Offering a timely and comprehensively-unique treatment of pest management and its environmental impacts in a single, inter-disciplinary volume, this book is a valuable resource for scientists in an array of disciplines, as well as government officials and policymakers. Also, teachers of undergraduate and graduate level courses in a variety of fields are sure to find it a highly useful teaching resource.

1
Environmental Pest Management: A Call to Shift from a Pest‐Centric to a System‐Centric Approach

Moshe Coll and Eric Wajnberg

1.1 Introduction

According to a United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimate, about 795 million people suffered from chronic undernourishment in 2015 (FAO, IFAD and WFP 2015), indicating that one in nine people is deficient in calories, protein, iron, iodine or vitamin A, B, C or D, or any combination thereof (Sommer and West 1996). Such high levels of global food insecurity make many human societies vulnerable to health problems, reduced productivity and geopolitical unrest. A crop loss due to pest activity is a major contributor to food insecurity: 30–40% of potential world crop production is destroyed by pests (Natural Resources Institute 1992; Oerke et al. 1994). Of all pests, insects cause an estimated 14% of crop losses, plant pathogens 13% and weeds 13% (Pimentel 2007). An additional 30% of the crop is destroyed by postharvest insect pests and diseases, particularly in the developing world (Kumar 1984).

Humans have probably struggled with pestiferous insects, mites, nematodes, plant pathogens, weeds and vertebrates since the dawn of agriculture some 10 000 years ago (Figure 1.1). The earliest approaches employed were probably hand removal of pests and weeds, scaring away seed‐consuming birds and trapping of granivorous rodents. Crop rotation, intercropping and selection of pest‐resistant cultivars soon followed. The earliest recorded use of chemical pesticides dates back to 2500 BC, when the Sumerians used sulphur compounds as insecticides (see Figure 1.1). The use of botanical compounds, such as nicotine and pyrethrum, was later reported. However, pesticide application became common practice only in the 19th century, with increased agricultural mechanization.

Figure 1.1 The history of pest management and changes in agro‐ecosystem sustainability. Historic data are based on Abrol and Shankar (2012) and https://courses.cit.cornell.edu/ipm444/lec‐notes/extra/ipm‐history.html.

1.2 Modern Developments in Pest Control

In the 20th century, the discovery of synthetic compounds with insecticidal and herbicidal properties, such as DDT and 2,4‐D in 1939 and 1940, respectively, quickly made chemical control the predominant method of pest control. In most cropping systems, this has remained the case to this day, in spite of growing awareness of the negative impacts of pesticides on human health and the environment. In fact, many of our current serious pest problems have been brought about by intensification of cropping systems, mechanization, selection for high yielding but pest‐susceptible crop genotypes, fertilization and irrigation inputs, and frequent application of pesticides (Thomas 1999; Waage 1993). Therefore, since the middle of the 20th century, most pest control measures have targeted specific pests on particular crops within single fields. Although reliance on a single tactic, usually the application of chemical pesticides, provides only a short‐term solution (Thomas 1999), such a bottom‐up approach has remained dominant is spite of widespread promotion of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) (Ehler 2006).

Integrated Pest Management has been accepted worldwide as the strategy of choice for pest population management. Since the United Nations Conference on the Environment in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, it has been the global policy in agriculture, natural resource management and trade. As a result, most of the world’s population now lives in countries with IPM‐guided policies for the production of most of the world’s staple foods (Vreysen et al. 2007). Nonetheless, the definition of IPM has remained vague and highly inconsistent for more than 55 years (Table 1.1) (Bajwa and Kogan 2002). Van den Bosch and Stern (1962) stated that ‘it is the entire ecosystem and its components that are of primary concern and not a particular pest’. Yet only 24% (16 of 67) of IPM definitions surveyed by Bajwa and Kogan (2002) included the term ‘system’ as the implementable programme or ecological unit. Furthermore, none of the surveyed definitions presented the term ‘integrated’ (in IPM) to indicate the integration of different measures employed simultaneously against several taxa across pest types (plant pathogens, insects, mites, nematodes, weeds, etc.). Since IPM is not legislatively defined, its definitions seem to reflect the respective interests and points of view of different individuals and organizations. Therefore, IPM is not a distinct, well‐defined crop production strategy.

Table 1.1 Selected definitions of Integrated Pest Management proposed or used by prominent authorities, arranged in chronological order (based in part on Bajwa and Kogan 2002).

Year	Definition	Source
1959	Applied pest control which combines and integrates biological and chemical control. Chemical control is used as necessary and in a manner which is least disruptive to biological control. Integrated control may make use of naturally occurring biological control as well as biological control affected by manipulated or induced biotic agents.	Stern et al. (1959)
1966	A pest population management system that utilizes all suitable techniques in a compatible manner to reduce pest populations and maintain them at levels below those causing economic injury.	Smith and Reynolds (1966)
1967	A pest management system that, in the context of the associated environment and the population dynamics of the pest species, utilizes all suitable techniques and methods in as compatible a manner as possible and maintains the pest populations at levels below those causing economic injury.	FAO (1967)
1969	Utilization of all suitable techniques to reduce and maintain pest populations at levels below those causing injury of economic importance to agriculture and forestry, or bringing two or more methods of control into a harmonized system designed to maintain pest levels below those at which they cause harm – a system that must rest on firm ecological principles and approaches.	National Academy of Science (1969)
1972	An approach that employs a combination of techniques to control the wide variety of potential pests that may threaten crops. It involves maximum reliance on natural pest population controls, along with a combination of techniques that may contribute to suppression – cultural methods, pest‐specific diseases, resistant crop varieties, sterile insects, attractants, augmentation of parasites or predators, or chemical pesticides as needed.	Council on Environmental Quality (1972)
1978	A multidisciplinary, ecological approach to the management of pest populations, which utilizes a variety of control tactics compatibly in a single co‐ordinated pest management system.	Smith (1978)
1979	The selection, integration and implementation of pest control based on predicted economic, ecological and sociological consequences.	Bottrell (1979)
1979	The optimization of pest control in an economically and ecologically sound manner, accomplished by the co‐ordinated use of multiple tactics to assure stable crop production and to maintain pest damage below the economic injury level while minimizing hazards to humans, animals, plants and the environment.	Office of Technology Assessment (1979)
1980	An interdisciplinary approach incorporating the judicious application of the most efficient methods of mai...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• 1 Environmental Pest Management
• Part I: General Background
• Part II: Impact of Pest Management Practices on the Environment
• Part III: Influence of Unmanaged Habitats on Pest Management
• Part IV: Effects of Global Changes on Pest Management
• Part V: Pest Control and Public Health
• Part VI: Policies Related to Environmental Pest Management
• Part VII: Concluding Remarks, Take‐Home Messages and a Call for Action
• Index
• End User License Agreement