USE OF ECONOMIC THRESHOLD LEVEL: A SUSTAINABLE STRATEGY TO PEST MANAGEMENT

Abstract

This paper attempts to highlight the farmers' use of economic threshold level as a sustainable strategy to pest management and its dynamics involved in the insecticidal treatment and use of varieties resistant to pests through training as a vehicle. Most of the trained farmers used economic threshold levels prior to using insecticides and fertilizers and thus minimized crop protection costs by reducing the number of insecticide applications. They also preferred selection of varieties with higher yield potentials and resistant to pests instead of varieties giving higher price and better grain quality. This precise and positive trends in pest management through training indicates a high degree of expertise attained by a farming community. If this trend is sustained and/or expanded to other areas of development, large scale dependence on import of very costly insecticides could be significantly reduced to a reasonable minimum and thus help maintain a balanced ecological orders as well.