Recent advances and challenges in implementing IPM Programmes in the entomological context of Indian Agriculture

Integrated pest management (IPM) programmes are based on using multiple methods to maintain nuisance insects below tolerant levels in crop fields. Recent advances in IPM in developed countries have incorporated biological pesticides, microbial products, semiochemicals, and beneficial insects, but few of such programmes have been successfully implemented in developing countries, such as India. Semiochemicals play critical roles as signals in various interspecific and intraspecific interactions between insects and plants, and among interacting insects, plants, and microbes. In India IPM programmes have included mechanical, chemical, cultural, and biological management strategies. However, among these methods, biological management has its own limitations. Indian IPM scientists mostly work on individual crops, assessing damage severity by specific nuisance arthropods and the efficacy of particular management measure. However, very few government institutions or commercial companies are engaged in developing and commercializing either biological pesticides or semiochemicals. Government institutions mostly focus on research on pheromones of the pestiferous Lepidoptera and Coleoptera. Developing IPM programmes requires a clear understanding of crop-plant development, biology and population dynamics of the nuisance organisms, and the chemical and molecular interactions between the two. It also necessarily requires local knowledge of available, prevalent management tactics. Moreover, the IPM programmes have not been widely adopted in developing countries due to lack of proper knowledge and training farmers in efficient IPM practices, the need for more of human labour, and the complexity of IPM practices, all of which impede on the effective implementation of IPM programmes. In this article, we recapture the historical development of IPM efforts in India and ask whether this concept remains suitable to the present-day challenges in crop production. In this review, more specifically, those factors identified as obstacles to the more widespread adoption of IPM and ways of overcoming such barriers are discussed.