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Eastern European IPM web site

Integrated pest management (IPM) has faced a variety of obstacles in recent years. Some are related to lack of economic resources. While this is shared by many less developed countries, it is a severe factor in many former Soviet block countries because of the collapse of their economies in the 1990s. These countries are now among the poorest in the world.

An additional problem, more specific to former Communist countries, results from the former system of collectivized agriculture. This system resulted in several generations of farmers who were not allowed to be involved in decision-making, and they are only now beginning to exercise independent decision-making in day-to-day farm activities, including pest management.

The Eastern European IPM CRSP site to date has included only Albania. It has now expanded to address concerns in two additional Eastern European countries: Moldova and Ukraine, in order to make the site more truly regional. The program now deals with high value horticultural crops (tomato, cucumber, grape and apple) in all three countries.

Implementation of the proposed project in these countries is:
- decreasing pesticide use in target crops
- slowing development of pesticide resistance and reducing the resurgence of secondary pests
- decreasing pesticide exposure risk to human applicators and consumers
- improving the marketing position of agricultural commodities in the international marketplace.

A Participatory Appraisal for the new crops was held in Albania in 2004; such an appraisal was carried out in Moldova and Ukraine in May 2006.

Some pictures from the project:

PI: Doug Pfeiffer, Virginia Tech
E-mail: dgpfeiff@vt.edu
Personal page: http://www.ento.vt.edu/Fruitfiles/DougBio.html