Marketing Integrated Pest Management as a Value-Added Service - Urban Insect Pests: Sustainable Management Strategies - page 205

14 Marketing Integrated Pest
Management as a Value-Added Service

Partho Dhang*
Independent Consultant, Philippines

Introduction

IPM (BIPRO, 2009). Internet search results
indicate that IPM may refer to many other
names and there are at least 300 meanings
for this acronym (Sweeney, 2011). Un-
fortunately, the confusion has led to misuse
of IPM at times, such as practitioners merely
incorporating multiple products like insecti-
cide baits into their regular pest control
service and renaming the programme as
IPM (Rust, 2008). In contrast, the phrase
'pest control' is well recognized and uni-
versally understood. Under these circum-
stances making IPM a successful tool, both
for marketing and practising, remains a
challenge for practitioners.
It is increasingly felt that the use of
pesticides makes pest control diffi cult
because all pesticide applications are com-
ing under greater scrutiny. The only solution
to this concern is the adoption and advocacy
of IPM as the primary approach to solve a
pest problem. The challenge, however, is to
prove to the practitioners that IPM is viable,
workable, ecological and profi table to their
business. Overall, it is to show that IPM is
sustainable.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a
concept designed for agriculture in response
to the increase in usage of chemical pesti-
cides. Today IPM is a methodology practised
by pest control practitioners who employ
human judgement in their act. The reason
for the necessary shift to IPM from con-
ventional pest control activity was because
over-reliance on pesticides had led to
repeated failures. In addition, the discovery
of harmful effects of pesticides soon became
evident and developing an alternative
strategy was inevitable. The demonstrated
successes of IPM methodologies in agri-
culture are also repeated in urban pest
management. The success, in turn, has
helped expand the subject to other
specialized areas of urban pest management,
such as integrated vector management
(IVM) and integrated termite management
(ITM).
In spite of the benefi ts, various industry
surveys have often found IPM to be an
unpopular practice among practitioners.
This is evident from the fact that the
majority of consumers who seek benefi ts
from pest control remain unaware of this
acronym, as do many decision makers
(Sweeney, 2011). There are more than 100
defi nitions in offi cial papers worldwide for

Conventional Pest Control Versus IPM

A conventional method of pest control has
the key benefi ts of covering a wider range of