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Texas Environmental Almanac, Environmental Focus: Pesticides, Page 5

INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT

Since 1972, some Texas agricultural producers have used a pest population management system known as Integrated Pest Management. The Texas A&M Experiment Station and Extension Service and the Texas Department of Agriculture share responsibility for research on and implementation of Integrated Pest Management. According to the National Research Council, "Integrated Pest Management rests on a set of ecological principles that attempt to capitalize on natural pest mortality."(52) Integrated Pest Management strategies are now being extended to schools, offices and home gardens.

For agricultural purposes, Texas A&M scientists define the Integrated Pest Management system as the use of two or more of the following practices: growing pest-resistant crops, crop rotation, using beneficial insects, scouting fields to determine pest populations and using an economic threshold approach that indicates when a pest population has reached a density level such that the cost of crop damage exceeds the cost of controlling the pest.(53)

Pesticide use is a component of Integrated Pest Management, but rather than relying on routine applications whether needed or not, the system relies on targeted applications for specific pests.

The Texas Department of Agriculture expended a total of $24 million for fiscal year 1994.(54) Of this amount, $1,662,550 was spent on the Department's Integrated Pest Management and Organics Certification program. Approximately $350,000 of the $1.6 million was given to the Texas Pest Management Association, a private association, under a cooperative agreement to subsidize Integrated Pest Management work for certain farmers. In 1994, the Texas Department of Agriculture informed 540 producers about Integrated Pest Management.(55)

For the 1994-95 biennium, total Agricultural Extension Service appropriation was $96.8 million. Approximately $500,000 of this $96.8 million is used by the Extension Service for Integrated Pest Management activities.(56) An additional $50,000 is provided under contract to the Texas Pest Management Association to conduct Integrated Pest Management activities for the association's farmer membership.(57)

For the 1994-95 biennium, the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station was appropriated $97.9 million. Of these funds, $4,508,207 is budgeted for Integrated Pest Management activities.(58) In Texas, Integrated Pest Management is used chiefly for cotton, corn, peanuts, sorghum, wheat, pecans, soybeans, rice, citrus and vegetables.

One of the major concerns for Integrated Pest Management adherents is the method's inability to reduce herbicide use. In Texas, 73 percent of the pesticides used for crop production are weed-controlling herbicides.(59) Texas A&M's Integrated Pest Management coordinator explains that the reduction of herbicides is very difficult for a variety of reasons. Because of the ubiquitous nature of weeds, they are difficult to control. In addition, Integrated Pest Management's methods for weed control tend to be labor intensive, and the costs of labor are rising. Furthermore, certain conservation practices, such as conservation tillage, actually have been shown to increase the use of herbicides for a certain period of time.(60) (See section on cropland erosion for discussion of conservation tillage and herbicides.)

The Texas Agricultural Extension Service highlights some of the following as specific benefits of the Integrated Pest Management Program:(61)

• In excess of 19 million pounds of pesticides were applied to Texas cotton in the late 1960s, prior to Integrated Pest Management. By the mid-1970s, pesticide use had dropped to about 2.3 million pounds as a result of multiple-tactic cotton Integrated Pest Management programs.

• A vegetable Integrated Pest Management program in the Rio Grande Valley reduced insecticides by 66 percent on carrots processed for baby food, soups and frozen foods. Using Integrated Pest Management, a single carrot grower increased her profits by $22,000.

• Integrated Pest Management programs for Texas pecans have increased yields by 80 pounds per acre. Profits have been increased by $306.25 per acre for irrigated pecans and $37.15 for dryland pecans.

• Citrus producers in the Lower Rio Grande Valley using Integrated Pest Management programs reduced insecticide application by 33 percent and increased per acre net returns by $75.

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STRUCTURAL PEST CONTROL BOARD AND INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT

The Structural Pest Control Board has initiated an Integrated Pest Management program to reduce the amounts of chemicals in public school structures and grounds. This program, mandated by state legislation passed in 1991, must be implemented by all Texas public school systems by September 1995. In addition, the Structural Pest Control Board is developing a program to certify applicators who wish to advertise their practices as being safer for human health and the environment. The program trains applicators in alternative practices, requires applicators to keep records and uses an inspection-based practice. Rather than routinely applying pesticides, the applicator is required by the program to inspect the property to see if there is an actual pest infestation.

In addition to these efforts to support Integrated Pest Management for agriculture and structural pest control, other state agencies and local governments are stressing the use of Integrated Pest Management as well as the advantages of choosing native and adaptable plants for home gardens and commercial settings.

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HOME PESTICIDE USE

For the most part, public policy has focused on the agricultural uses of pesticides and the health risks posed by residues on food, with much less concern for home and commercial exposure to pesticides.(62) The improper disposal of home and garden pesticides can potentially pollute creeks and lakes, and the presence and/or misapplication of pesticides in homes and buildings can have human health and environmental effects.

An EPA study conducted in 1988 disclosed that 80 percent to 90 percent of most people's exposure to pesticides in the air occurs indoors and that measurable levels of up to a dozen pesticides have been found in the air inside homes. Sources of this inside exposure include pesticide-contaminated soil or dust from outside, pesticides released from stored pesticide containers and household surfaces that are treated with pesticides.(63)

Texas-specific data on pesticide use in and around the home is not available. The EPA estimates that annual pesticide use for non-agricultural purposes in the U.S. is about 1.1 pounds per capita.(64) EPA's 1990-1991 National Home and Garden Pesticide Use Study reveals:(65)

• An estimated 85 percent of all households in the United States have at least one pesticide stored in and around the home, and most families have between one and five pesticide products stored.

• Seventy-six percent of all households self-treated their homes for insects and other pests.

• Among households that disposed of leftover concentrates of pesticides in the past year, 67 percent disposed of the concentrates in their regular household trash and 13 percent used special collections.

Texas Environmental Almanac, Environmental Focus: Pesticides, Page 5

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