• IPM is a process of decision making and farming which is gradually improved with greater ecological knowledge, and observation skills. It is not a "packaged technology" that is "adopted" by farmers.
• IPM skills and concepts are best learned, practiced, and discussed in the field. The field is the classroom. Plants and pests are the training materials. Avoid air-conditioned classrooms and PowerPoint presentations. Go to the farms instead.
• Season-long training courses allow all plant, insect, disease, and weed development processes and management to be observed and validated over time. IPM training must be carried out over all crop stages.
• Local or indigenous knowledge of the environment, varieties, pests, etc. must play a major role during decision making. Farmers must actively participate and share their experiences during training to achieve maximum interest and effectiveness.
• IPM trainers must not lecture, but should facilitate a learning process. Trainers do not convince farmers or give recommendations, but rather provide structured experiences so that farmers can test IPM methods and convince themselves about which are useful and which are not.
• Trainers use methods of working in a respectful manner in groups that often include persons older and more experienced than themselves.

• Crop development and physiology
• Agronomic methods for a healthy and profitable crop
• Varietal impact on pest management
• Soil fertility management
• Biology of pest insects, diseases, and weeds
• Natural enemies of insects and diseases
• Field observation skills
• Pesticides, including environmental, health and handling issues
• Economic management skills

• More regular crop quality and quantity
• Healthier plants
• Reduced contamination of the environment
• Reduced use of pesticides
• Reduced input costs
• Better use of natural resources
• Reduced contamination of the crop with chemical residues
• Reduced risk of farmers from contamination with chemicals

The Economic Threshold Level (ETL) used to be part of IPM many years ago, but in modern IPM it has been replaced by Agro-Ecological System Analysis (AESA) where farmers take decisions based on a larger range of observations.

Unfortunately, even today, there are still many “specialists” who still recommend ETLs to farmers, presenting this as an IPM method. But there are many reasons for not using an ETL.

One of the problems of the ETL is that it is based on parameters that are changing all the time, and that are often not known. An ETL is calculated from:

1. the management cost (Baht/rai)
2. the price of the farm produce (Baht/kilo)
3. expected damage or yield losses (kilo/rai)

Management cost could be estimated, but when the crop is still in the field, it is usually not possible to know what the price per kilo will be at harvest time.

The damage or losses caused by a certain density of insects can not be predicted at all.. It depends on many other factors, such as crop variety, weather conditions, availability of water and nutrients, plant stage, etc. It also depends on the availability and performance of natural enemies. There is a big difference between “a bean plant with 20 aphids” and “a bean plant with 20 aphids and 1 hover fly larva”.

This is why ETLs that are “recommended” in all kinds of manuals for farmers can never be applied in a farmer’s field. Farmers cannot base their decisions on just a simple count of pests. They will have to consider many other aspects of the crop (crop ecology, growth stage, natural enemies, weather condition, etc.) and their own economic and social situation before they can make the right crop management decisions.

Another important consideration is that good crop management does not only depend on controlling pests, but even more on the prevention of pests. Over a period of time, IPM specialist have realized the limitations of ETLs and gradually developed the Agro-Ecosystem Analysis (AESA) as a much more flexible tool to make crop management decisions.

• cost of control
• harvest value of crop (estimation)
• loss of income due to pests (estimation)

L

• growth stage of the crop
• weather conditions
• crop development factors (incl. compensation ability)
• type and number of insect pests
• type and amount of diseases
• type and number of natural enemies
• type and amount of natural disease control agents (if applicable)
• type and amount of weeds
• water availability (irrigation, drainage)
• soil fertility status
• fertilizer applications
• activities in the field since last week
• other observations

J