Iowa Pest Resistance Management Program: Questions and Answers

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Iowa Pest Resistance Management Plan logoWhat is the Iowa Pest Resistance Management Program?

This is an Iowa-specific effort to address pests — including weeds, insects and plant diseases — that can adapt and become resistant to chemical, genetic, and agronomic control practices. The Iowa Pest Resistance Management Program (IPRMP) outlines approaches for effective, integrated management solutions that will sustainably manage pests. By fostering methods to detect resistance, pest resistance can be delayed or even prevented, limiting its spread.

Why does Iowa need a pest resistance program?

Pest resistance management (PRM) is the effort to delay pests from developing resistance. Pest resistance has the potential to impact yields, increase the cost of production, and limit farmers’ future PRM options. With that in mind, the IPRMP was developed with a broad cross-section of Iowa agricultural partners to address this important issue while remaining flexible enough to incorporate new information.

What are the program's goals?

The Iowa program seeks to engage farmers on the issue of PRM with the goal of keeping technology and tools — including pesticides for controlling weeds, insects, and disease; seed treatments; and biotechnology products and native traits — available and effective. It is also important that farmers know they are not alone in their effort to address resistance; a wide variety of experts and resources are available to help. The Iowa program will also include wide participation from all sectors of Iowa agriculture in order to educate and prevent broad applications that could lead to resistance.

How will the program be implemented?

Iowa’s 90,000 farmers will play a leading role in PRM through their stewardship of pesticide management technologies and biotechnology traits and tools. Farmers make management decisions each year on more than 23 million row-crop acres. Farmers’ proactive adoption of practices is necessary to delay the development of herbicide, insecticide, and fungicide resistance, protect crop traits, and manage existing cases of resistance to help them remain competitive in the global market by maintaining the long-term productivity of Iowa agriculture while reducing pest-associated yield losses.

In addition, reaching agricultural professionals, such Certified Crop Advisers, Independent Crop Consultants, seed and pesticide retailers, and agronomic and farm advisors will be critical to the success of the strategy. Ag professionals who can provide multi-year plans that include PRM tactics will provide additional value to their services.

Finally, pilot projects of active PRM will be established. These projects will be focused on utilizing the latest pest resistance management tools and also examine approaches to encourage successful, voluntary PRM adoption. The pilot projects will identify key stakeholders within a defined “community” and will be inclusive, bringing all potential players to the table. The pilot projects will work to establish incentives and novel approaches to encourage the community to work together to address the identified pest-resistant problems (i.e., weeds, insects, and diseases).

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