Impact of Educating Farmers about Biological Control in Farmer Field Schools

An Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Farmer Field School (FFS) is a field-based activity that lasts a full cropping season. A typical FFS meets once a week and 25-30 farmers participate in an FFS. In addition to group dynamics activity and a special topic session, an FFS emphasizes scientific learning through experimentation. Biological control is discussed and confirmed by carrying out insect zoo studies. A common insect zoo in rice IPM FFS involves placing a lycosid spider among field collected Brown Plant Hopper (BPH) in a clear bottle. Seeing is believing and perhaps for the first time, the concept of biological control is understood by resource-poor farmers. This process of educating farmers about biological control can be further enhanced by simple “exclusion cage” experiments. Learning about biological control was also achieved in Dalat, Vietnam, leading to an understanding of the selective action of the microbial insecticide Bacillus thuringiensis in managing the diamondback moth on cabbage. With the information from experiments and pilot studies, farmers were able to organize village-wide activities to conserve the population of Diadegma semiclausum (Hellen), a key larval parasitoid of Plutella xylostella (L.). Similar impacts were observed in cotton fields in China, India and Pakistan where populations of pests were kept in check when FFS graduates did not carry out early sprays. Preliminary studies indicated that the species diversity was higher in IPM plots as compared with plots regularly treated with insecticides. In India, the number of species was 48 in IPM plots and 31 in non-IPM plots. For Bangladesh, the study showed 49 species in IPM plots compared with 36 species in non-IPM plots. Combined with an increase in biological control knowledge (FFS farmers scoring 16.9 points for recognizing natural enemies as compared to 2.3 for non-IPM), there is a concomitant reduction in use of insecticides (43% for IPM farmers versus 34% for non-IPM). With the skills acquired at FFS, farmers have increased incomes, as farmer education activities help consolidate the impact of biological control in farmers’ pest management decision making (34% increase in FFS farmers as compared to 10% for non-FFS farmers).