Have Ideas About a New IPM? Here's Your Chance to Share Them

What's next for IPM? What should it look like in the future? How should it be funded? Whom should it serve? If you had a blank slate, how would you create a new IPM to best benefit the people, environment and economy of the United States? 

That's what the National IPM Coordinating Committee spent a good portion of its two-day meeting in October discussing. And you can contribute to the conversation.

In workshops, meeting participants answered questions the Committee will use to draft a white paper proposing a future direction for IPM. Here are the questions participants answered:

1. What are the BIG ideas for a NEW IPM?
2. You have a clean white board with the full authority and financial support to create a NEW IPM. What are three key concepts to evolve the current paradigm?
3. Local, state and regional IPM needs exist. How would you go about identifying and linking these needs to national priorities?
4. How would you programmatically address underserved populations or program areas?
5. How would you create the next generation of IPM professionals?
6. Consider the food-production needs to feed the world population by 2050. How can land grant universities best support the IPM needs of the global community?

There were also workshop questions about communication and accountability:

1. How should local, state, regional and national needs assessments be determined?
2. What is the best way to coordinate IPM on a national basis?
3. What is the system infrastructure needed to best develop and deliver IPM?
4. How can we better capture and package IPM stories?
5. How should state impacts be communicated at the national level?
6. Excluding time and funding, what are the barriers to effective communication and accountability?

To contribute to the conversation, send your answers or ideas to the new Coordinating Committee chair, Washington State University’s Doug Walsh.