Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Nature of delivery
Time to apply
Skill
Odour
Staining
Loading and mixing
Toxicity
Fig 14.1. Formulation characteristics rated as important by practitioners.
magazine articles, websites and exhibits to
carry messages of disease, contamination,
loss of business or fatality to persuade
clients. In recent times, however, some pest
control advertisements have transformed
from ruthless killing to emotional
thoroughfares. The concept of a green and
safe home with smiling family members has
crept in to appeal to consumers. All of these
are efforts to persuade consumers to
minimize their personal encounters with
pests in addition to prevent damages to
health and property. Such campaigns that
consistently associate brands with positive
attributes, usually preconceived, perhaps
factual, often inaccurate, but especially
emotional, are known to work (Lunn, 2010).
A carefully created advertisement could
be misleading, however, and may not reveal
the full truth. Such campaigns could harm
pest control operations and the imple-
mentation of IPM programmes. Consumers
with poor knowledge in pest management
at times demand the use of a much-
advertised brand and reject the recommen-
dation of the practitioners. Thus, product
marketing directed towards consumers
promotes practices that are counter to IPM
and encourage unsustainable approaches
(Draper, 2012). Pest control products are
also made available at the supermarket as a
'do it yourself' range for direct use by
consumers. This often prevents the scien-
tifi c practice of pest management. IPM
practitioners often face complaints of failure
from consumers who have improperly used
baits and generally these experiences of the
consumers make them resistant against the
use of insect baits.
Lack of publicity
Few systematic studies of IPM have been
documented in an urban setting. Generally,
reports on IPM-based programmes are re-
stricted to researchers and scientists. Often
these reports are the results of federal
grants. Private participation of IPM report-
ing is insignifi cant or non-existent, which
signifi cantly contributes to its unpopularity
and poor adoption.
IPM as a Value-Added Service
The success of IPM depends on making it
distinguishable from conventional pest
control by attributes that would eventually
appeal to consumers. A number of such
attributes could be used as value additions
to the service. This would allow the con-
sumer to appreciate and invest in IPM
programmes. The following points could be
value additions for an IPM programme,
which will help distinguish it from a con-
ventional pest control.
Installing pest barriers
Integrated pest management heavily relies
on physical methods and use of barriers is
very common. Pest barriers are permanent
 
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