"There were nosusin the old days:" Post-Harvest Pest Management in an Egyptian Oasis Village

Abstract

Over the past three decades, a new pest management paradigm has been introduced into the oasian farming system of the Egyptian Western Desert. This western, scientifically-based system supplants the traditional practices developed by the farmers over the millennia. This article documents the indigenous post-harvest pest control and storage practices, discusses how current pest control methods were introduced, examines the socioeconomic factors and reasons for adoption of new technologies, and presents the farmers' perceptions of the impacts these changes have made. In conclusion, I discuss how the indigenous pest management methods may be compared and integrated with western scientific methods towards the development of an environmentally safe integrated pest management (IPM) program. These observations can have important consequences for the development, implementation, and research of pest management practices in other traditional systems.