Advances with Integrated Pest Management as a Component of Sustainable Agriculture: The Case of the Australian Cotton Industry

Insect pests represent a significant limitation for production of many crops. Traditional reliance on pesticides brings significant economic costs and environmental liabilities of off-target drift, chemical residues and resistance. IPM has long been proposed as an alternative. The adoption of IPM in the Australian cotton industry provides a valuable overview of the key components of IPM and the issues around successful implementation. IPM must be founded on a thorough understanding of the ecology of pest and beneficial species and their interaction with the crop and will provide a range of tactics which must be integrated by the producer to achieve economic and environmental sustainability. The emerging era of insect resistant transgenic cottons offers real prospects to provide a foundation for more sustainable, economically acceptable IPM with the integration of a range of non-chemical tactics and much less reliance on pesticides.