Journal of Extension paper highlights the benefits of IPM Summit
Chris Hedstrom, Oregon IPM Center
A new article published in the Journal of Extension this month features the first annual IPM Summit at Oregon State University, hosted by the Oregon IPM Center (known then as the Integrated Plant Protection Center, IPPC). The paper, An Integrated Pest Management Summit for Reveals Barriers, Needs, Goals for Agricultural Extension, reports on the outcomes from the meeting, specifically the barriers, needs, and goals identified by the faculty in attendance. The paper also highlights the importance of meetings that bring together IPM-related university staff and faculty, and provides example materials to support other programs in creating similar events.
The IPM Summit at Oregon State University was designed to bring together the different people and groups, including faculty and staff from extension and research, working in IPM at OSU. The paper reinforces that advancing IPM in Oregon to meet national as well as statewide goals, including IPM-related legislation, requires sophisticated coordination and engagement. As described in the paper, “[Because IPM is] a multi-disciplinary field addressing a wide variety of settings and environments, close coordination across disciplines (including plant, and animal sciences, pathology, pesticide science, engineering, economics, and behavioral and social sciences) is needed, in order to deliver education on effective IPM strategies to stakeholders.” The authors recognize that IPM implementation relies heavily on effective coordination between research and Extension faculty and programs.
The primary goal of the summit was to identify goals, barriers, and needs for advancing IPM in Oregon. A secondary and less formal goal was to give IPM-related faculty a chance to meet with each other face to face, a rare opportunity when they are distributed across all corners of the state. The first annual IPM Summit took place in the Memorial Union on the Corvallis campus on December 14, 2018. Fifty-five attendees from various IPM disciplines attended the conference, where small groups discussed themes including pesticide risk reduction, monitoring and diagnostics, invasive and emerging pests, biologically-based IPM, and IPM in organic systems. Rather than presentations, the meeting was built around short flash talks, group discussions, breakout sessions and brainstorming activities to collectively identify issues and generate strategies for increased collaboration toward advancing IPM.
The article is designed to show the advantages of an “IPM Summit,” and encourages other Extension programs to consider such events. The meeting flyer, agenda, and outcomes report generated from the meeting are included as examples to help other groups plan similar events. The paper was authored by Katie Murray, Paul Jepson, Melissa Scherr, Cassie Bouska, and Darrin Walenta. The Oregon IPM Center has since hosted a second IPM Summit (January 2020), and plans to hold them annually. The new paper appears in the June 2020 issue of the Journal of Extension.
Link: An Integrated Pest Management Summit for Reveals Barriers, Needs, Goals for Agricultural Extension. Murray, K., Jepson, P. Bouska, C., Scherr M., and Walenta, D. June 2020. Journal of Extension 58:3.
Read about the 2020 IPM Summit: IPM Summit a valuable networking opportunity for research and extension
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This article appears in Oregon IPM Insider, Vol 1 Iss 2, Summer 2020.