Impact Evaluation of Rice Integrated Pest Management Programme in Sub tropical North India

Abstract

newline In India, Directorate of Plant Protection Quarantine and Storage (DPPQS) through its 36 Integrated Pest Management Centres (CIPMCs) implements the integrated pest management (IPM) programmes through Farmer Field School (FFS) since 1994. Many studies have been conducted for measuring the impacts of IPM-FFS programmes. Most of these studies have measured short-term and intermediate-term impacts of IPM-FFS programmes. There is a debate going on about the long-term impacts of IPM-FFS. Therefore, to find out the long-term impacts of rice IPM-FFS programme, a study entitled Impact Evaluation of rice integrated pest management programme in sub-tropical North India was carried out. Ex-post facto with/without research design was employed to study the impact IPM-FFS. The results show that the IPM-FFS trained farmers were more knowledgeable about cultural practices, pesticides, and insect pests of rice crop but the differences with the non-IPM farmers were not statistically significant. Both IPM-FFS trained and non-IPM farmers attitude towards IPM practices was less favourable. However, the mean knowledge and attitude scores of the IPM-FFS trained farmers were higher both in Jammu and Punjab, but the difference was statistically significant only in case of Jammu. A higher percentage of IPM farmers had adopted resistant varieties, seed treatment, deep summer ploughing, and management of paddy straw as compared to non-IPM farmers. Most of the studies show that long-term impact of IPM-FFS programme on reducing insecticide and fungicide use does not reflect a conclusive trend. Overtime the benefits of IPM-FFS programme on reducing insecticide and fungicide have fleeted. The results show contrary impact of IPM-FFS on pesticide use in Jammu and Punjab. In Jammu, the average pesticide applications by the IPM-FFS trained farmers were 24.8 per cent less than the non-IPM farmers, whereas in Punjab, it was only 6.9 per cent. However, the IPM-FFS trained farmers use of pesticide active ingredient was less than the non-