Fourth National IPM Symposium


Fourth National IPM
Symposium/Workshop
2003



 Session: IPM Evaluation and Impact Assessment
Wednesday 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Organizer(s):
Ann Sorensen (asorensen@niu.edu)
Esther Day (eday2@niu.edu)
Thomas Greitens (tgreiten@niu.edu)
Scott Swinton (swintons@msu.edu)


The following presentations are in this session:

9:00 AM - 9:10 AM Welcome and Introduction Ann Sorenson
    (Please note that this is not an abstract. Rather, this is a brief summary of notes taken during Ann's presentation. We apologize for any inadvertent omissions or errors in meaning or attribution.)

    Ann welcomed the participants and discussed the purpose of this session. Speakers in this session will discuss various methodologies to measure potential objectives for IPM programs. The August 2001 GAO report (GAO-01-815) recommended establishing objectives for IPM programs and developing a methodology for measuring those objectives. Since that time, USDA’s draft IPM Roadmap document has identified three potential outcomes for IPM programs: 1) increased economic viability; 2) a healthier environment; and 3) improved public health. Ways to measure these outcomes will be discussed in four categories: Economic Assessment; Adoption and Pesticide Use; Environmental Assessment and Health Risks. It is hoped that discussions from this session will produce a preliminary matrix showing how these potential objectives for IPM programs should be measured.




9:10 AM - 9:25 AM IPM Assessment and Risk: Framing the Issues and Vocabulary Scott Swinton [Download Presentation/Summary ]
    IPM assessment programs take two distinct forms, based on distinct objectives. Programs that aim to encourage IPM use “assessment” scoring systems to characterize levels of IPM adoption, often for industry certification purposes. While useful for building program participation, practice-based scoring systems generally do not provide adequate information for public program assessment. Programs that aim to evaluate the efficiency of public expenditures use measures of specific techniques adopted and specific environmental, health and profitability impacts. The primary focus of the assessment component of the National Roadmap for IPM is the latter form – public program assessment.

    Along the three major dimensions of IPM assessment – profitability, health and environmental – it is helpful to think of how IPM effects both mean outcomes and the risk of bad outcomes. “Risk” in this sense refers to the probability distribution of outcomes (e.g., crop yields) that may be affected by IPM practices. As evidenced by experimental IPM insurance initiatives, crop farmers care about whether IPM reduces or increases the likelihood of suffering a bad harvest. A competing use of the term “risk,” mostly tied to health and environmental impacts, is synonymous with a bad outcome. For public program impact assessments, the probabilistic sense of “risk” deserves special attention, while the casual reference to risk as a bad outcome will automatically receive attention.




9:25 AM - 9:40 AM Defining and Measuring Reduction in Adoption Risk Tom Green [Download Presentation/Summary ]
    (Note: This is not an abstract. Rather, this is a brief summary of notes taken during Tom's presentation. We apologize for any inadvertent omissions or errors in meaning or attribution.)

    Tom discussed IPM adoption risk. Risk is a key barrier to adoption of IPM, including the risk from sampling errors, weather risks, and just the perception of risk. Insurance for consultants and federal crop insurance don’t adequately address all risks. Many consultants don’t carry insurance and the federal crop insurance has very high deductibles, 15 percent or more. As a result, risk becomes a barrier to adoption, farmers are reluctant to use crop advisors and too many inputs are used “just in case.”




9:40 AM - 10:00 AM Opening Remarks Harold Coble
    (Please note that this is not an abstract. Rather, this is a brief summary of notes taken during Harold's presentation. We apologize for any inadvertent omissions or errors in meaning or attribution.)

    Harold stressed the fact that the IPM community should promote the adoption of IPM programs and measure the adoption rates. However, the GAO review put measurement in a different light. Now, stakeholders have to determine the outcomes of IPM adoption and measure those outcomes. If this does not occur, then IPM might not be around in five to seven years. We have to do a credible job of measuring levels of IPM adoption (define it by tactics and measure adoption of tactics on a regional basis) and then determine what outcomes we anticipate or desire and measure those. This is where the roadmap comes in. We need to measure risk reduction and document it. What do we use to measure health effects, environmental effects and economic effects to generate the real numbers we need?




10:00 AM - 10:20 AM Economic Assessment of IPM Programs Scott Swinton [Download Presentation/Summary ]
    Economic assessments of IPM are aimed at public program assessment; hence they focus on specific outcomes, rather than simply practice adoption. The first round of economic assessments of IPM programs were often as simple as partial budget profitability analyses. During the past two decades, huge strides have been made in incorporating environmental and health factors into economic analyses, either as trade-offs or as monetary valuations. Recent efforts have been made to incorporate such “non-market” values into aggregate welfare impact analyses. So far, these efforts have been restricted to well-defined practices on individual crops within individual states. Finding a cost-effective way to aggregate over the diverse fields of IPM implementation at a national scale remains a formidable challenge, even when restricted to traditional, pesticide-reliant, threshold-based IPM programs. As IPM programs move more toward biological controls and ecosystem management, new methods will be needed for economic assessment. In particular, bioeconomic and biophysical models will be needed to simulate interactions among climate, predators, parasitoids, pests, their hosts and valued products and services affected by pests in order to estimate how managed ecosystems evolve with and without IPM interventions.



10:20 AM - 10:40 AM Economic Analysis of BioIPM Programs Deana Sexson [Download Presentation/Summary ]
    Advancing production systems to enhance environmental quality is a primary goal of people working in the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) field. Environmental advances are crucial, but to maintain grower profitability, these systems must also incorporate economics into the equation. Implementations of biointensive IPM programs are only feasible when they maintain economically viable farming systems. This begs the simple question: can IPM programs be economically viable? In early stages of IPM adoption, economic advantages are often found. The economic savings are possible through the use of limited, timely and effective pesticide applications targeted at pests during their vulnerable life stages. Clear economic saving are seen when sprays occur less often during the growing season. Early examples of IPM implementation of Wisconsin potatoes showed growers could save over $160 per hectare by utilizing IPM techniques and targeting pesticide applications. The increased cost of scouting, for example, was clearly offset by the cost savings in reducing the number of pesticide sprays reducing the chemical costs for the season. However, as IPM systems become more biologically based, (including the utilization of cultural, biological, chemical, physical, and ecological methods of pest control) economic savings are much less evident. Each alternative strategies utilized by the growers for pest control purposes have costs associated in their implementation. Granted, the utilization of these various strategies do limit pest numbers thereby limiting pesticide applications, but the alternative strategies also have costs which need to be accounted for by the grower. These increased costs could be labor, managerial time, and cost of implementation. The costs of implementing reduced risk, lower toxicity pesticides can also increase production costs since the reduced risk materials are generally more expensive than conventional materials. Utilizing biologically based IPM systems does enhance environmental quality and many benefits to the ecological landscapes are found. Putting a dollar value on the environmental and ecological advantages can be difficult, and retuning this cost to the grower is a challenge we face as we move toward advanced, biologically based production systems.



10:40 AM - 11:10 AM Economic Assessment Panel Discussion all speakers [Download Presentation/Summary ]


11:10 AM - 11:30 AM Measuring Adoption of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Systems Using Commodity-Specific IPM Definitions and Large Scale Grower Surveys Bill Coli and Craig S. Hollingsworth [Download Presentation/Summary ]
    It has become increasingly important for land-grant University research and Extension to document impacts of their efforts, including the extent to which potential end users are adopting the results of research or outreach programs. We would suggest that assessing adoption of IPM systems requires, at minimum, two things: A thorough description of the IPM system ready for adoption, and large scale surveys. This presentation describes the process used to develop commodity-specific IPM definitions (IPM Guidelines), and to conduct surveys of growers of sweet corn, strawberry, apple and potato in nine northeastern U.S. states.

    IPM systems for the various crops included practices that involved management of soil and nutrients, weeds, insects, and diseases as well as a grower education component. Adoption of the system was measured by assigning numerical values for completion of specific practices, practice points were summed, and growers placed along a continuum from low-level to high-level adopters. Data is presented showing that moderate- to high-level adoption of IPM systems ranged from 69% of apple growers to 90% of potato growers. Data is also presented from other surveys indicating that apple growers in Massachusetts operating larger farms (> 20 acres) used more insect monitoring traps, directly observed greater numbers of pests and beneficials and used more IPM practices overall than those operating smaller farms (< 20 acres). Larger farms also used fewer dosage equivalents of insecticide (5.6 D.E) than smaller ones (7.8 D.E.).




11:30 AM - 11:50 AM GMOs and IPM: Are they Compatible? Dennis Keeney [Download Presentation/Summary ]
    In 1997 I issued a position statement from the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University that the Center would not sponsor research designed to “develop or expand the adoption of systems incorporating herbicide-tolerant crop varieties but will support research that includes evaluation of these technologies and their consequences as part of diverse cropping systems.” This policy, which provoked considerable comment, was based on my belief that a broad-spectrum pest control such as glyphosate was not compatible with a sustainable agriculture. Further, it did not seem to be part of bio-intensive IPM. The policy came from views I developed beginning in 1989. In this presentation, I review the attributes of currently approved genetically modified herbicide resistant soybean (HRSB) and corn (HRC), and genetically modified corn for control of European Corn Borer (BtECB) and Corn Root Worm (BtCRW). I present a series of matrices evaluating these crops against attributes of bio-intensive IPM and sustainable agriculture. While the HRSB and glyphosate does an excellent job controlling most nuisance weeds and BtECB has been quite effective in control of European Corn Borer, neither of these pest control systems consistently increase producer profits. This is due to decline in yield in the case of soybean, and increased seed costs in the case of Bt corn. Developing pest resistance is a major concern with these crops. While it is claimed that HRSB and HRC aid in soil conservation by minimizing or eliminating tillage, their introduction appears to be coincidental with the increased popularity of conservation tillage. And conservation tillage has declined somewhat in recent years while land in HR crops has increased. Further, they have not lessened pesticide use, have minimized options for crop rotations beyond a two crop system, and have little or negative effect on beneficial insects. Glyphosate resistant weed species are on the increase.

    The success of the herbicide tolerant crops lies in the simplified management they offer. This enables larger farm operations and fewer producers on the land. Hence they are little different from other technologies that have been part of the long-term trend of labor displacement and substitution of energy-intensive inputs for management. Further, their widespread acceptance has greatly altered the economic, political and social landscape of the global food systems. Although agriculture will not likely revisit the issues surrounding approval of these crops, society must question the wisdom of further development of single gene GM crops for pest control. I conclude that GMO crops for pest control are not part of bio-intensive IPM programs.




11:50 AM - 12:10 PM Using Pesticide Use Data to Evaluate IPM Programs Larry Wilhoit [Download Presentation/Summary ]
    A few countries and US states collect data on pesticide use. The most complete and detailed database for production agriculture is the Pesticide Use Reporting (PUR) system in California. These data can be used, at least partially, to evaluate IPM programs, not so much to determine how many growers are using IPM, but to determine whether the goals of reduced risk have been met. However, the use data must be supplemented with other information such as economics, pest levels, weather, human exposure, environmental monitoring, use of other non-chemical pest management practices, and the reasons growers have for adopting particular practices.

    We have analyzed pesticide use in California, dividing pesticides into high risk, low risk, adjuvants, and others. Pesticides are considered high risk if they appear on at least one of several lists: organophosphates (OPs), carbamates, California’s Proposition 65 list of chemicals "known to cause reproductive toxicity", U.S. EPA’s list of B2 carcinogens or California’s Proposition 65 list of chemicals "known to cause cancer", California Department of Pesticide Regulation’s (DPR) groundwater protection list, or DPR's toxic air contaminants list. Pesticides are considered low risk if they are on U.S. EPA’s list of reduced-risk pesticides or if they are considered a biopesticide, which include microorganisms and naturally occurring compounds.

    Production agricultural pesticide use in California over the period from 1992 to 2001 has not changed much overall. However, use of most pesticides decreased from 1998 to 2001, especially use of high-risk pesticides, while low risk pesticide use has increased. There is not much evidence that this decrease was due to efforts of IPM programs. The primary reasons for these changes seem to be pest pressures and economics.

    Of the major crops, the largest decrease in high-risk pesticides has been on cotton. Although apples, pears, and almond have been mentioned as important examples of adoption of low risk IPM programs, there has been only a small reduction in high-risk pesticides and small increase in low risk pesticides. There has been a dramatic decrease in dormant OP use on almonds possibly due to the strong efforts of many organizations concerned about the presence of OPs in surface waters. The low risk alternatives to dormant OPs appear to be effective and are being adopted by many growers. The main low risk alternative is not Bacillus thuringiensis or dormant oil, but no dormant insecticide at all.




1:45 PM - 2:20 PM Adoption and Pesticide Use Panel Discussion all speakers [Download Presentation/Summary ]


2:20 PM - 2:40 PM Tracking Pesticide Risk Trends and Tradeoffs Charles Benbrook [Download Presentation/Summary ]
    (This is the paper's Introduction. The entire paper can be accessed at http://www.wisc-fla-ramp.info/measure_IPM_Symposium.pdf )

    Many people wonder whether progress has been made in the last ten or twenty years in reducing the risks associated with pesticide use. The General Accounting Office, in its August 2001 report, posed some key, tough questions -- Does IPM really reduce pesticide risks? And if so, to what extent? Are USDA’s IPM research and education programs optimally focused on pesticide risk reduction?

    The IPM community owes the general public and policy-makers credible answers to such questions. Traditional measures of pesticide use like “pounds applied” and “rate of application” have served for years as proxies for risk. But low-dose chemistry has pulled the rug out from volume-based measures of risk. The transition in the 1990s away from broad-spectrum toxicants to often very-low dose biopesticides that work through specific, targeted modes of action further limits the utility of weight-based measures.




2:40 PM - 3:00 PM Putting an Environmental Cost to Pesticide Use with Environmental Impact Quotients Joseph Kovach [Download Presentation/Summary ]
    Recently, the US General Accounting Office published a report on the improvements that are needed to further promote IPM in the USA. One recommendation from this report was that a method needed to be developed to the measure the environmental and economic progress of IPM programs. The purpose of this presentation is to address this need by proposing a method that develops a "common currency" that can be used by IPM practitioners to measure and communicate both the environmental and economic impact of different pesticide and IPM programs. This new pesticide price model integrates three previously published environmental and pesticide use/risk studies. It estimates the environmental cost or price of over 200 different pesticides by totaling each pesticide's off-target impact costs (i.e. aquatic, avian, honey bee, groundwater, farmworker, beneficial insect and consumer). By knowing the environment cost of each kg (lb) of active ingredient of pesticide, comparisons between individual pesticides and/or IPM programs can be more easily communicated to growers, policy makers and the general public.



3:00 PM - 3:20 PM Indicators in Europe: With a Special Emphasis on The Netherlands and the Role of the OECD Robert Luttick [Download Presentation/Summary ]
    Over the last 10 years there has been a joint effort by government, industry and farmers to reduce the use and emission of pesticides in the Netherlands. Instead of monitoring the environmental quality, modelling techniques have been used to measure the improvements. The developed tools use information on sales data, agricultural knowledge, emission characteristics, physico-chemical properties and geographical characteristics for the Netherlands. Environmental indicators have been developed for the aquatic ecosystem, the terrestrial ecosystem and for groundwater.

    These Dutch indicators are based on the risk quotient of the predicted environmental concentration (PEC) divided by the toxicity and on a scaling factor that depends on the number of hectares treated. But other types of indicators are also possible and that is what is happening in the world. The indicators adopted by several countries are not based on the same principles and it is therefore difficult to compare outcomes from one country with those from another country. This is the reason why the OECD has started a working group with the task to compare different indicator models to see what results they produce and how user-friendly and transparent they are. In this presentation I will show some results of the Dutch approach and in addition I will compare some of the European indicators to show what the differences are.




3:30 PM - 3:50 PM Reducing the Environmental Risk of Pest Management Joseph K. Bagdon [Download Presentation/Summary ]
    Reducing the environmental risks of pest management is an important goal of the USDA - Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Risks to human drinking water have been reduced, but more work is needed in other areas. NRCS policy requires site-specific environmental risk analysis and appropriate mitigation for all pest management activities that pose substantial risk to natural resources. Surface water bodies and groundwater that are in close proximity to pesticide application areas often need special consideration for adequate resource protection. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) can be an ideal way to mitigate pesticide environmental risk. Conservation planners and other farm advisors can use the NRCS Windows Pesticide Screening Tool (WIN-PST) to evaluate site-specific pesticide environmental risk. WIN-PST qualitatively ranks the potential for pesticide transport via leaching below the root zone and runoff beyond the edge of the field. It then combines these exposure potentials with long-term pesticide toxicities to humans and aquatic life. The final results are hazard potentials to humans and fish from non-point source exposure. Working in partnership with other IPM practitioners, NRCS planners will use WIN-PST to guide producer selection of mitigating conservation practices and management techniques that help protect water quality.



3:50 PM - 4:10 PM A Comparison of Pesticide Environmental Risk Indicators for Agriculture Thomas Greitens and Esther Day [Download Presentation/Summary ]
    This study analyzes a variety of environmental risk systems identified in the literature and utilized in some agricultural practices. Using actual pesticide application data from tomato and pepper farms in Florida, an analysis of these systems reveals basic differences in data points, environmental effects considered, and assessments of environmental risk. With this type of information, this research reveals that certain environmental risk systems are more usable and more applicable at the individual farm level than other environmental risk systems.



4:10 PM - 4:45 PM Environmental Assessment Session all speakers [Download Presentation/Summary ]


4:45 PM - 5:00 PM Concluding Remarks George Norton [Download Presentation/Summary ]
    (Please note that this is not an abstract. Rather, this is a brief summary of notes taken during George's presentation. We apologize for any inadvertent omissions or errors in meaning or attribution.)

    George emphasized that different audiences exist for evaluations. He also discussed the steps involved for an IPM Impact Assessment. These steps include defining IPM measures; measuring the degree of adoption; estimating economic impacts and aggregating economic, environmental, and health impacts. We can undertake these steps with different levels of detail (time/credibility). For instance, in measuring health and environmental impacts, several levels of detail are possible. There is location specific data versus non-location specific data.

    Overall, we need to address three issues: 1) the effects of IPM adoption on pesticide use; 2) changes in health and environmental risk as pesticide use changes; and 3) weighting or valuing the various risks (e.g. EIQ) (note: a study by Higley/Wintersteen used contingent valuation to develop weighting criteria with growers). The bottom line is we need to determine the minimum data needs for growers, for GAO, etc. and proceed to collect that information.