ABSTRACT
Integrated pest management (IPM) is a decision support system for the selection and use of pest control tactics, singly or harmoniously coordinated into a management strategy based on cost/benefit analyses that take into account the interests of and impacts on producers, society and the environment (Kogan, 1998). Brenner et al. (1998) explains IPM as using a variety of management tools including traditional toxicants, in an integrated approach to managing pest populations. Obviously, a common character of IPM programme is a shift in the use of resources from materials to labour as applications of interventions change from calendar basis to an “as need basis” (Brenner et al. 1998). Thus a number of pest control tactics have been developed to manage various pests under different situations. However, pesticides continue to be the single most widely used pest control measure in view of their ease of application and rapidity of action. Unfortunately, conventional synthetic pesticides pose unacceptable levels of risk to human health and environment. The latest WHO figures suggest that at least 3 million agricultural workers are poisoned each year by pesticides and some 20,000 deaths can be directly linked to agrochemical use (Meerman et al. 1997). The presence of residues of these pesticides in food commodities and other components of the environment has proved toxic to humans, domestic animals, birds, fishes and other organisms. The Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) of USA reported that one out of 3400 children between 1 and 5 years of age could one day get cancer because of the pesticides they ate as young children (NRDC 1989).
