Measuring up! Involving Stakeholders in Assessment of an Industry's IPM Revolution

The availability of accurate, real-world data on pest management practices, crop pest losses, and associated costs are critical to assessing the adoption and impact of IPM programs. We engage agricultural stakeholders through annual survey workshops to develop data on crop pest losses, control costs, target pests, and pesticide use. These data, now spanning over 30 years for cotton, are useful in documenting adoption of IPM practices, economic savings to growers, and large-scale changes in pest management practices. The workshops encourage and reward stakeholder input, foster collaborative relationships with key stakeholder groups, and provide high quality data on pest management practices and their economic impacts. For example, the last 5 years have shown the lowest insecticide use in cotton on record (32 years) at just 1.5 sprays season-long, reducing insecticide loads on the environment by more 1.6 million pounds of active ingredient annually and saving growers over $10 million per year.  In addition to quantitative data, stakeholders identify the specific intent or intended targets of pesticide inputs, so the resulting data provide unique insights into the decision-making experience of each pest manager. These insights help guide existing and new programs in IPM research, implementation, and outreach. Our dialog with stakeholders helps us identify emerging pest issues and changing needs of stakeholder communities  The ability to measure impacts and industry practices is useful for generating interest in and sustaining support for our IPM programs, which in turn have produced great economic benefits for growers.