Bringing IPM information to small-scale farmers is a
significant challenge, but one that has many potential benefits - including
expanded opportunities to spot invasive pests and diseases.
That's the conclusion of a Western Small Farm IPM Work Group
that in 2014 completed a four-year project in six Western states.
"The biggest surprise was that in the three states that
implemented on-farm pilot projects, we found the first recordings of various new
diseases or pests,” explained Tess Grasswitz, one of the project leaders and
the state IPM coordinator for New Mexico. “That was unexpected.”
But getting IPM information – and supplies – to small farms
isn't easy, as the group discovered.
The Project
The project began in 2010 with funding from the USDA’s
National Institute of Food and Agriculture and a simple idea: to forge better connections
between existing IPM teams and their small-farm counterparts in each state.
“The plan was that each state would conduct a needs
assessment in the first year, then a small-farm IPM pilot project beginning in
year two,” Grasswitz explained. “Three of the states in the project successfully
implemented on-farm pilot programs: California, New Mexico, and Utah”.
California’s project focused on dragon fruit producers in
San Diego County, while both New Mexico and Utah’s projects began with small-scale
vegetable producers and expanded to include fruit IPM. The other three states
involved in the work group, Washington, Oregon and Idaho, concentrated on different
outreach activities.
“This was not a traditional working group, and we didn’t
have a lot of meetings with each other,” Grasswitz said. “That was not the aim.
Instead, we wanted interaction with the growers to learn how to better meet
their IPM-related needs.”
Positive Outcomes
Generally, the group
found growers valued the interactions they had with the researchers and the IPM
knowledge they gained, especially through the one-on-one, on-farm contacts.
The unexpected outcome was the discovery of several pests
and diseases in locations where they hadn’t been seen before.
“In New Mexico, for instance, we found the first state
records for spotted wing drosophila and a new cereal aphid (Sipha maydis) on pilot-project farms, as
well as a new county record for bagrada bug,” Grasswitz said. “In Utah, they
found various vegetable diseases they didn’t know they had, and in California,
they found a new viral disease of dragon fruit.”
The team believes small farms – especially those in and
around urban areas – are ideal places to look for new invasives for several reasons.
First, because new pests seem to spread along major highways and trade routes,
they’ll often show up in or near major urban areas. Second, because many small
growers plant exotic crops (for local ethnic markets for example), exotic pests
find themselves right at home.
“We think small farms are a potentially valuable network of new
monitoring sites for these invasive species,” Grasswitz said.
Challenges Remain
While the on-farm
pilot projects produced positive results, expanding on those successes is a
logistical challenge. The work group members who conducted one-on-one events recommend
local, field-based activities similar to the “Farmer Field Schools” often used for
IPM programs in international development.
“The best way to help is to work directly with growers on
the farm, but that gets very expensive very quickly,” Grasswitz said. “And most
universities and extension services are strapped for cash already.”
Another barrier to IPM adoption by small producers is the
lack of availability of IPM products in small quantities.
“In all the states with on-farm projects, we found IPM
adoption hindered for at least one pest by the lack of appropriate pack sizes
for small-scale producers,” Grasswitz said. “Examples of that included pheromone
dispensers for mating disruption, organic pH buffers and several pesticides. We
need to encourage manufacturers to address the small-farm market.”
One group member proposed the creation of small-acreage
producers’ associations in each state to represent the needs of small producers
and facilitate information flow between the farmers and IPM educators and
researchers.
“Globally, the importance of small-scale farms and urban or peri-urban
agriculture is huge,” Grasswitz said. “It’s important to continue to focus on
it.”
