Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
requires coordination, eventually making
an IPM programme unattractive for pest
control practitioners.
determines the cost of labour, which in the
majority of cases determines the pest control
activity itself.
Pesticides made available to pest control
practitioners are a formulated product.
Formulation helps the pesticide to be uni-
formly applied in the target area. Formu-
lations also make handling of the pesticide
easier for the applicator. The most common
formulations in the current market are water
miscible - mixed in water and applied with
a sprayer. Such formulations are popular in
the market because they are easy to
manufacture and apply, in addition to
having lower production costs. This in turn
made the sprayer as 'the strategy' of choice
for applicators undertaking pest control.
Sprayers helped achieve an easy spread of
the chemical in a large area in less time. It
covered solid surfaces and water bodies,
helped treat cracks and crevices and even
took care of space treatments. The ease and
fewer technical skills required to operate
sprayers promoted water-based low-cost
formulations, which in turn defi ned a
conventional pest control act.
The availability of a low-cost water-
miscible formulation and the use of sprayers
to apply them is a major impediment in
training practitioners on pest management
and the concept of IPM. In a structured
survey of 100 pest control operators across
the Philippines by the author, key
parameters that dominated the choice of a
pest control programme were the delivery
system or method of pesticide application,
the time taken for the application and the
skill involved in the application. These key
parameters were chosen over others by the
practitioners, such as loading and mixing
hazards, the effect on application equip-
ment, odour, staining properties, visible
residues after application and toxicity (Fig.
14.1). All of these indicated a deviation of
practitioners from IPM objectives.
Poor consumer awareness
Consumers are the ultimate benefi ciaries of
a pest control service and their choice of a
right method determines the success of a
programme. For practitioners, it remains a
challenge to market a pest control pro-
gramme on the basis of their individual
skill and workmanship. Skill is an invisible
factor that is hard to prove before the actual
task is undertaken. Also when a homeowner
trades the problem of having pests for a
sum of money to a pest control operator, the
owner is aware that the cost he is paying
has a share of profi t made by the practitioner.
The owner simply does not know how
much. This uncertainty makes him
reluctant and at times may bargain for a
lower price. Mostly, the homeowner will
seek other practitioners' quotes to be sure
of the cost. An expensive IPM-based
programme would be less competitive than
a conventional treatment and therefore the
chance of rejection by an unwary consumer
is high.
Poor consumer awareness is a good
reason that prevents marketing of IPM. The
problem of 'asymmetric information', where
one party has better information about the
product being traded than the other, makes
the subject of marketing a major challenge.
The homeowner is therefore unsure of the
programme he intends to purchase so often
this information disparity affects trade
(Lunn, 2010) and the sale of a well-
conceived IPM programme.
Easy availability of a sprayable
formulation
Pesticides play a key role in a pest control
activity. The nature of pesticide formulation,
its packaging, transportation mixing and
delivery are crucial in a pest control
situation. Each of the parameters also
Insuffi cient advertising
Pest control products are advertised by
the use of presentations, public lectures,
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