Writing in Crop Protection , they discuss the range of external and internal challenges facing IPM, the need for multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary IPM research and innovation (R&I), and how networked European IPM should be linked to IPM networks elsewhere.  

They report: “Integrated pest management (IPM) is facing both external and internal challenges. External challenges include increasing needs to manage pests (pathogens, animal pests and weeds) due to climate change, evolution of pesticide resistance as well as virulence matching host resistance. The complexity of designing effective pest management strategies, which rely less heavily on the use of conventional pesticides, is another external challenge.

“Internal challenges include organizational aspects such as decreasing trend in budget allocated to IPM research, increasing scarcity of human expertise, lack of knowledge transfer into practice and the communication gap both at country level and between countries, and lack of multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary IPM research. There is an increasing awareness that trans-national networking is one means to overcome such challenges and to address common priorities in agriculture.

“A large number of stakeholders (researchers, policy makers, growers and industries) are involved in the sector of crop protection, which needs to be coordinated through effective communications and dynamic collaboration to make any IPM strategy successful. Here we discuss a decade-long IPM networking experiences in Europe emphasizing how IPM research, implementation and adoption in Europe may benefit from a broader level networking.”

The authors make a series of recommendations for existing and new IPM networks which would boost IPM and its impacts. These include better communications among research organisations across the world and increased openness in collaborative long-term experimentation, improved networking between researchers and advisers, foresight studies with multiple stakeholders, and improved communication and dissemination in the IPM networks.   

Taken from: Jay Ram Lamichhane, Jean-Noël Aubertot, Graham Begg, Andrew Nicholas E. Birch, Piet Boonekamp, Silke Dachbrodt-Saaydeh, Jens Grønbech Hansen, Mogens Støvring Hovmøller, Jens Erik Jensen, Lise Nistrup Jørgensen, Jozsef Kiss, Per Kudsk, Anna-Camilla Moonen, Jean-Yves Rasplus, Maurizio Sattin, Jean-Claude Streito, Antoine Messéan. Networking of integrated pest management: A powerful approach to address common challenges in agriculture, Crop Protection, Volume 89, November 2016, Pages 139-151, ISSN 0261-2194, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cropro.2016.07.011.

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