Decision making and economic risk in IPM

Understanding and communicating the value of an IPM program or specific IPM tactics in agriculture, forestry and other venues has historically been difficult for a number of reasons (Grieshop et al., 1988; Wearing, 1988; Kogan, 1998; Swinton & Day, 2003). Some of the more common barriers to adoption include a lack of practical sampling/monitoring tools (Wearing, 1988), challenges to fully integrating biologically based tactics (Kogan, 1998; Ehler & Bottrell, 2000), the need for multiple pest–damage relationships for multiple insect pests per crop (Pedigo et al., 1986), changing economic conditions (with or without government subsidy programs) and the fact that multiple human audiences with diverse backgrounds and motivations are on the receiving end of new IPM programs (e.g. Bechinski, 1994; Cuperus & Berberet, 1994; Bacic et al., 2006; Hammond et al., 2006), including known variability in the adoption of new technologies (e.g. Mumford & Norton, 1984; Grieshop et al., 1988; Rogers, 1995). Equally important barriers, however, could be the perceived complexity of IPM compared to current conventional pest approaches (e.g. Bechinski, 1994; Cuperus & Berberet, 1994; Grieshop et al., 1988), or a lack of up-front consultation with targeted audiences prior to the R&D investment for developing IPM programs (Norton et al., 2005; Bacic et al., 2006). Although many of the concepts discussed in this chapter are relevant to IPM audiences in forestry or residential-urban pest management, our focus will primarily be targeted to decision makers in agricultural systems, and primarily arthropod management in crops.