Careful control: IPM in China

摘要

The new, sustainable Green Revolution is taking hold in Asia. In the next few years in China alone, more than a million farmers are to be officially trained in an environmentally respectful pest management approach that is key to the agricultural strategy of the 1990s. In the Green Revolution of the 1960s, crop yields exploded thanks to liberal use of expensive chemical insecticides and fertilizers, but those yield gains proved unsustainable. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is now gaining support worldwide as the sensible way to handle pests and disease, IPM implies a number of approaches, particularly dependence on the natural predators of crop pests to reduce pest numbers, and a more intelligent, spare use of chemicals.