Strategic Plans & Pest Loss Assessments
Through the development of strategic plans and pest loss assessments, the Oregon IPM Center strengthens our agriculture systems by ensuring that local agricultural needs are identified, and that knowledge, education, technologies, and strategies are developed. Along with Extension, we build processes that engage and connect farming groups with researchers, educators, and regulators to create an efficient and adaptive system.
Program Goals
-
The development of models for agricultural stakeholder engagement to accurately assess the needs and challenges for IPM and facilitate better collaboration to ultimately increase the adoption of IPM and sustainable practices.
-
Facilitation of processes to identify political, social, environmental, and institutional barriers that impede agricultural progress and sustainable management, and the development of strategies for overcoming these barriers using democratic and socially just participatory approaches.
- Encouraging agricultural policies that enable sustainable social-ecological systems.
-
Coordination of local, regional, statewide, national, and international networks of cooperators to maximize communication, adoption, and impacts associated with new methods and models for engagement and IPM adoption.
-
Documentation of changes in adoption of resiliency behaviors among IPM stakeholders.
- Tracking and monitoring of the economic impacts of pests and pest management practices over time for a wide range of Pacific Northwest crop industries.
Program Impacts
Contributions to IPM
-
IPM Strategic Plans have been developed for many Pacific Northwest industries. Documented IPM improvements have taken place based on successful solutions to stakeholder-cited pest management needs.
- Targeted Extension education has been designed and carried out in collaboration with our lead Extension agents, based on stakeholder-identified education needs from the IPM Strategic Plans.
Economics
-
Leveraged funds of up to $22 per $1 invested are created by pest management strategic planning, which support targeted research and extension education to address critical IPM challenges in the Pacific Northwest.
- Pest Losses Impact Assessments have been conducted for five Pacific Northwest industries: potato, onion, cranberry, cherry, and hazelnut. Data summaries coming soon.
System-wide improvements
- Well-researched and detailed comments to Environmental Protection Agency and USDA on Pacific Northwest usage of various chemicals, as well as pollinator concerns and mitigations, have supported more informed regulatory decision-making.
- Rapid responses to impacts due to the Coronavirus pandemic by providing an easily accessible list of products requiring minimal PPE to aid decision making where supplies were unavailable.
Current Projects
IPM Strategic Plans
-
IPM Strategic Plans are living documents that identify the critical pest management needs and concerns of agricultural industries by growers, commodity-group representatives, pest control advisers, University research and Extension representatives, and other technical experts,. The comprehensive documents include production and industry overviews, key pests by growing stages, and top research, educational and regulatory needs, and can lead to the creation of tools like the Critical Needs Database for Pacific Northwest Commodities.
Pest Losses Impacts Assessment
-
Pest Losses Impacts Assessment is a detailed and comprehensive survey to develop and track “real world” data on the impacts of specific pests and pest management practices on crop yields, production costs, and profitability.
Pesticide Risk Management
-
This flagship project of the Western IPM Center is a multi-university collaboration of IPM experts across many universities to identify and reduce health risks related to pesticide use and improve ecological function. This project creates decision-support in pesticide selection to encourage use of reduced-risk products, risk mitigation education with the use of higher risk products, and development of pathways that lead to elimination of highly hazardous pesticides.
Pacific Northwest IPM Communication Network
- To aid the EPA in regulatory decision-making, the network gathers information from agricultural stakeholders on current practices, pesticide usage patterns, and potential impacts of regulatory decisions among Pacific Northwest stakeholders. This network operates as part of the Western IPM Center.