Other recently added documents include details of the Expert meeting on national plans and programmes for the reduction of risks associated with the use of plant protection products held in Germany in 2007 and the UK Pesticides Forum’s 2008 Annual Report .

ENDURE’s Report on the BiPRO Study submitted by the ENDURE network of experts for DG (Directorate General) Environment was compiled in response to BiPRO’S 2009 report Development of guidance for establishing Integrated Pest Management (IPM) principles and its accompanying Draft Guidance Document (see previous news story for more details).

The BiPRO report was examined by the European Commission’s expert group on the Thematic Strategy on the sustainable use of pesticides in Brussels last year, with the expert group including ENDURE’s assistant coordinator Marco Barzman (INRA, France, pictured right) and Silke Dachbrodt-Saaydeh (Julius Kuehn Institute (JKI), Germany), the leader of the ENDURE group dedicated to offering scientific support to the policy making process.

Consultancy organisation BiPRO scrutinised eight general IPM principles discussed and adopted by the European Parliament and Council:

• Measures for prevention and/or suppression of harmful organisms
• Tools for monitoring
• Threshold values as a basis for decision-making
• Non-chemical methods to be preferred
• Target specificity and minimisation of side effects
• Reduction of use to necessary levels
• Application of anti-resistance strategies
• Records, monitoring, documentation and check of success

DG-Environment subsequently asked members of the Thematic Strategy expert group, ENDURE and Member States to comment on and add to the BiPRO report and guidelines. Drawing on the expertise of ENDURE experts in five European countries (ENDURE's Network of Experts), ENDURE's report identifies a number of important points:

• The systemic nature of IPM, which means that:
  • In accordance with principle 1 (above) on the prevention and/or suppression of harmful organisms, the emphasis should be on creating the conditions that reduce the frequency and intensity of pest outbreaks.
  • Crop protection measures should be addressed collectively rather than in isolation, as much as possible.
• The availability of the knowledge resources needed to implement certain approaches.
• A historical bias in favour of entomology, with weed management particularly neglected.

• You can read the full report by going to the ENDURE position papers page or download it here:
  Report on the BiPRO Study submitted by the ENDURE network of experts for DG Environment [pdf - 131.73 kB]
• You can read the BiPRO report by going to the European documents page or download it here:
  BiPRO - Development of guidance for establishing Integrated Pest Management (IPM) principles [pdf - 1.16 MB]

For more information:

In the pages offering information for policy makers, you can also find the following useful documents:

• National policy documents
• Review papers

ENDURE has established a network of experts that can be called upon to provide scientific support on crop protection problems or issues. This network draws upon the competences within ENDURE to respond to requests from groups involved in IPM-related policy making or in the practical implementation of IPM. Contact ENDURE for more details.