Pest Management Strategic Plans

The availability of safe and effective pest management tools is critically important to both conventional and organic growers as they try to reduce severe economic losses due to insect, disease, weed, nematode and vertebrate pests. To assist in the transition to reduced risk pest management and to adjust to the potential loss of crop protection chemicals due to regulatory actions (e.g. the Food Quality Protection Act), US-EPA and USDA have recommended that each commodity develops a long term plan to address their pest management needs. These documents are called “Pest Management Strategic Plans (PMSPs)”. Go to http://www.ipmcenters.org/pmsp for specific commodity information.

These plans have been beneficial as they have been directly used by commodities to direct their own research programs (e.g. in developing a “Request for Proposal”). These plans are also valued resources which have been used by agencies such as EPA, USDA, IR-4 and the California Department of Pesticide Regulation in developing grant programs, conducting risk assessments, and prioritizing new product registrations.