Social, economic and policy aspects of integrated pest management of forest defoliators in India

Abstract

About half a dozen insects are important forest defoliators in India, and they are primarily pests of plantations. No progress has been made towards their integrated management, in spite of some good beginnings in the 1930s. Socio-economic factors have been the main hindrances to successful development and adoption of IPM strategies against forest defoliators. Virtually all forests in India are government-owned, and forest pest control has been accorded low priority relative to the more pressing agricultural pest problems. Added handicaps are the small number of forest entomologist, their inadequate training in the concepts and techniques of IPM, the lack of adequate recognition and rewards for applied research, and the absence of purposeful research management at institutional and national levels in forestry (which is being corrected with the establishment of an Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education). In retrospect, the past neglect of forest pest control in India has saved the forest ecosystem from the onslaught of chemical pesticides. The present trend in agriculture is away from chemicals to IPM, and state ownership of forests is conducive to the implementation of IPM. But IPM research and implementation have their own inherent difficulties. Massive training efforts are needed to bring about the needed shift in emphasis in research approaches. Equally important needs are adnministrative decisions to correct the inflexibility of institutional structures to meet the new demands of coordinated research much needed for the success of IPM in practice in spite of its wide acceptance as a concept.