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Pesticide Risk Management

  

Pesticide Risk Management

Transformation in agricultural systems is required to meet food supply needs, improve human health and well-being, connect better to ecological services, minimize harm to pollinators and wildlife, and adapt to global climate change.

Transformation in agricultural systems is required to meet food supply needs, improve human health and well-being, connect better to ecological services, minimize harm to pollinators and wildlife, and adapt to global climate change.

The Kavli declaration highlights the role that science can play in supporting this transformation, and this program addresses some key barriers that must be overcome if we are to meet goals for crop production, while protecting health and ecological function.

We have developed the Agricultural Transformation Pathway to explore this process more fully and provide structure to numerous projects within this program, and within the Oregon IPM Center (formerly Integrated Plant Protection Center). The pathway includes five elements:

  1. Learning about the problem through conceptual modeling, and analysis of vulnerabilities and uncertainties;

  2. Describing the system through data assessment, and modeling;

  3. Ethical review to determine when uncertainties are sufficiently reduced to conduct education programs;

  4. Conducting transformational processes that include stakeholder partnerships with scientists and educators, participatory education and effective evaluation;

  5. Adaptation in response to system-level changes by scaling up programs, and adapting them to meet changing needs in uncertain environments subject to dynamic and unpredictable change.
     

Projects

  • Western Pesticide Risk Management Project

    • This Signature Project of the Western IPM Center aims to address the needs expressed by collaborating Western region statewide IPM programs to achieve significant and documentable pesticide risk reduction across the Western US, a region representing some of the world’s most productive and diverse agro-ecosystems. Successful risk reduction here could also translate into significant progress globally through the mechanisms that we develop.
       

  • IPM/PRM Marketplace Standards and Certification

    • We partner with leading standard-setting and certification bodies to implement IPM as a requirement for crop certification globally, focusing in particular on adoption of reduced-risk, biologically based pest management practices, and reduction in pesticide risks to human health and the environment. We also develop and provide education and training for certification auditors, and for farmers who seek crop certification.
       

  • Reducing Pesticide Risks to Farmers and the Environment in the Senegal and Niger River Basins

    • Certain risks to health, environment and agriculture are so pressing (e.g. adaptation to climate change, reconnecting with ecosystem services, and reduction in highly hazardous pesticide risks) that a new approach to education and the relationship between scientists, educators, and farmers is required. We are developing a process that formally considers the uncertainties associated with pesticide risk to human health and the environment. 
       

Recent Publications

  •  "Selection of pesticides to reduce human and environmental health risks: a global guideline and minimum pesticides list". Paul C. Jepson , Katie Murray, Oliver Bach, Maria A. Bonilla, Lars NeumeisterThe Lancet: Planetary Health, Volume 4, Issue 2, Pages e43-e85. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542519619302669 

  • "Assessing Compatibility of a Pesticide in an IPM Program" James J Farrar, Peter C Ellsworth, Rebecca Sisco, Matthew E Baur, Amanda Crump, Al J Fournier, M Katie Murray, Paul C Jepson, Cathy M Tarutani, Keith W Dorschner. Journal of Integrated Pest Management, Volume 9, Issue 1, 2018, 3, https://doi.org/10.1093/jipm/pmx032

  • "Pesticide Hazard and Risk Management, and Compatibility with IPM" in Fall Armyworm in Africa, a Guide to Integrated Pest Management. Paul C. Jepson, Katie Murray, IPPC, Oregon State University, USA; Oliver Bach, Sustainable Agriculture Network, Costa Rica; Donald Kachigamba, NPPO, Malawi; Francis Ndeithi, Syngenta, Kenya; Joseph Kibaki Miano, Bayer, Kenya; Tracy McCracken, USAID, Kenya; David Onyango, CABI, Kenya; Isaiah Nthenga, ZARI, Zambia; Komi Agboka, University of Lomé, Togo; Stephen Byantwala, Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, Uganda; and Hugo De Groote, CIMMYT-Kenya. Published by USAID, CIMMYT and CGIAR in collaboration with Feed the Future.