Identifying the drivers and constraints to adoption of IPM among arable farmers in the UK and Ireland

BACKGROUND

Arable crops in temperate climatic regions such as the UK and Ireland are subject to a multitude of pests (weeds, diseases and vertebrate/invertebrate pests) that can negatively impact productivity if not properly managed. Integrated pest management (IPM) is widely promoted as a sustainable approach to pest management, yet there are few recent studies assessing adoption levels and factors influencing this in arable cropping systems in the UK and Ireland. This study used an extensive farmer survey to address both these issues.

RESULTS

Adoption levels of various IPM practices varied across the sample depending on a range of factors relating to both farm and farmer characteristics. Positive relationships were observed between IPM adoption and farmed area, and familiarity with IPM. Choice of pest control information sources was also found to be influential on farmer familiarity with IPM, with those who were proactive in seeking information from impartial sources being more engaged and reporting higher levels of adoption.

CONCLUSION

Policies that encourage farmers to greater levels of engagement with their pest management issues and more proactive information seeking, such as through advisory professionals, more experienced peers through crop walks, open days and discussion groups should be strongly encouraged.

Measuring the unmeasurable? A method to quantify adoption of integrated pest management practices in temperate arable farming systems

BACKGROUND

The impetus to adopt integrated pest management (IPM) practices has re-emerged in the last decade, mainly as a result of legislative and environmental drivers. However, a significant deficit exists in the ability to practically monitor and measure IPM adoption across arable farms; therefore, the aim of the project reported here was to establish a universal metric for quantifying adoption of IPM in temperate arable farming. This was achieved by: (i) identifying a set of key activities that contribute to IPM; (ii) weighting these in terms of their importance to the achievement of IPM using panels of expert stakeholders to create the metric (scoring system from 0 to 100 indicating level of IPM practised); (iii) surveying arable farmers in the UK and Ireland about their pest management practices; and (iv) measuring level of farmer adoption of IPM using the new metric.

RESULTS

This new metric was found to be based on a consistent conception of IPM between countries and professional groups. The survey results showed that, although level of adoption of IPM practices varied over the sample, all farmers had adopted IPM to some extent (minimum 32.6 [corrected] points, mean score of 67.1), [corrected] but only 15 [corrected] of 225 farmers (5.8%) had adopted more than 67.1% [corrected] of what is theoretically possible, as measured by the new metric.

CONCLUSION

We believe that this new metric would be a viable and cost-effective system to facilitate the benchmarking and monitoring of national IPM programmes in temperate zone countries with large-scale arable farming systems. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry.

The extent that certain dairy farmer attitudes and behaviors are associated with farm business profitability

The way in which farm managers' attitudes, personality, behavior, values, and sociodemographic characteristics influence farm business performance is, at best, only partially understood. The study reported here expands on this understanding by analyzing the attitudes and personal attributes of 80 dairy farmers in Great Britain in relation to the profitability over 3 yr of their farm businesses. Business goals, temperament, purchasing behavior, and having a growth mindset toward the business were found to be associated with profitability. A linear regression model consisting of 5 variables related to the above was presented that predicts 34% of the observed variation in profitability. Each of these variables were questions related to the participants' personal attitudes or beliefs. Other assessed variables, such as specific husbandry behaviors or practices, or management practices and sociodemographic characteristics, did not warrant inclusion in the final model. These results uniquely contribute to understanding how the attitudes, personality, behaviors, and attributes of dairy farmers are associated with, and thus likely to influence, the profitability of their farm businesses.

Farmers' attitudes to disease risk management in England: a comparative analysis of sheep and pig farmers

The UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) identified practices to reduce the risk of animal disease outbreaks. We report on the response of sheep and pig farmers in England to promotion of these practices. A conceptual framework was established from research on factors influencing adoption of animal health practices, linking knowledge, attitudes, social influences and perceived constraints to the implementation of specific practices. Qualitative data were collected from nine sheep and six pig enterprises in 2011. Thematic analysis explored attitudes and responses to the proposed practices, and factors influencing the likelihood of implementation. Most feel they are doing all they can reasonably do to minimise disease risk and that practices not being implemented are either not relevant or ineffective. There is little awareness and concern about risk from unseen threats. Pig farmers place more emphasis than sheep farmers on controlling wildlife, staff and visitor management and staff training. The main factors that influence livestock farmers' decision on whether or not to implement a specific disease risk measure are: attitudes to, and perceptions of, disease risk; attitudes towards the specific measure and its efficacy; characteristics of the enterprise which they perceive as making a measure impractical; previous experience of a disease or of the measure; and the credibility of information and advice. Great importance is placed on access to authoritative information with most seeing vets as the prime source to interpret generic advice from national bodies in the local context. Uptake of disease risk measures could be increased by: improved risk communication through the farming press and vets to encourage farmers to recognise hidden threats; dissemination of credible early warning information to sharpen farmers' assessment of risk; and targeted information through training events, farming press, vets and other advisers, and farmer groups, tailored to the different categories of livestock farmer.