Soluciones! - Zamorano's Outreach Magazine

Integrated Pest Management:

zamorano´s outreach magazine

Through PROMIPAC (The Central American Program for Integrated Pest Management), Zamorano provides needed expertise, diagnostics and hands-on learning experience to farmers to minimize pesticide use, increase crop yields, and protect human health and the environment.

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Through PROMIPAC (The Central American Program for Integrated Pest Management) and other projects Zamorano provides needed expertise, diagnostics, and hands-on learning experience to farmers to minimize pesticide use, increase crop yields, and protect human health and the environment.

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“This farmland is the only way my family has to live. This farmer field school has given me important information and real training that has helped me grow more produce and make more money. They have taught me how to keep my children safe from pesticides. The drinking water is now clean. I no longer have to worry about waking up to find my crop destroyed by insects or some other problem. With the extra income from our crops we have rebuilt the roof of our home, and paid for medical treatments for my husband. My children are now going to school. This field school has changed all of our lives for the better.”

Ernestina Cepeda CordobaEl Salvador

ntegrated pest management (IPM) is a technique that targets the specific pests and diseases in a given location -- an agricultu-ral field, home, school, office or lawn-- and limits treatments to the actual areas of infestation and the types of problems present. IPM has been gaining in popu-larity for years as an effective

strategy for combating pests and diseases while also safeguarding human health and the environment.

Conceptualized in the United States in the 1950s, IPM is an alternative to conventional pest management in which a broad spectrum of pesticides (and herbicides) is administered over an entire crop during regular intervals as a means of prevention. The conventional appro-ach can lead to a variety of problems including pest species with increased resistance or even immunity to anti-pest treatments, the decimation of beneficial insects including pollinators, soil degra-dation, food and water contamination, and harmful health impacts on farm laborers and their families.

IIn contrast, IPM relies on careful obser-vation of the crop and its environment to undertake a control program targeted at a specific issue, whether a disease, an insect infestation, or a rat problem. An understanding of ecological balance undergirds IPM, recognizing that the eradication of an entire “pest” species is neither possible nor desirable, and that the promotion of other factors -- including soil health, adequate light, and water, beneficial insect populations (pest predators), and intercropping and/or companion plantings -- also increase crop productivity and reduce pest pro-blems. Zamorano has long been committed to sustainable farming and land manage-ment practices. The university became the first institution in Honduras to prac-tice IPM, when it began teaching IPM strategies in the early 1980s and applying IPM in its fields and orchards. In 1983, Zamorano undertook its first IPM outrea-ch effort and successfully identified ways Honduran farmers could use IPM to fight slugs that were destroying bean crops, a principal staple in Central America. Wi-thin a few years the university was deve-

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loping successful methods for managing pests in corn, onion, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, melons and tomato crops (to name a few) and had nascent outreach programs in El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

In 1992, Zamorano undertook an outreach project to provide assistance to subsistence farmers in remote areas of Honduras. The university worked with nongovernmental organizations to create groups in small farming communi-ties and then provide them with readily available, local solutions to pest pro-blems -- such as showing farmers how to harvest a pesticide from a local tree, the Madriado (Gliricidia sepium), and apply it to corn and bean crop pests. Initiated through the United Nations Develop-ment Program, the outreach project was funded by the Swiss Agency for Deve-lopment and Cooperation (SDC). (The SDC is an international aid organization which seeks to alleviate poverty through such initiatives as promoting economic self-sufficiency and food security and mitigating environmental problems.)

The SDC was particularly impressed with Zamorano’s methodology in two key respects. First, the project employed an-thropologists as part of the team to help trainers understand the cultural context of the effort, to offer insights into how the farmers learned and communicated, and to avoid the tendency of experts to “use speech filled with data and scienti-fic terminology,” as project director and Zamorano professor Dr. Alfredo Rueda puts it. Secondly, rather than dictating a single response to a problem, the pro-ject provided training on “a menu of options” so an individual farmer could decide which techniques would work best for him or her.

After witnessing Zamorano’s success with this early effort in rural Honduras, in early 1994, the SDC enlisted Zamora-no to lead a similar program just getting underway in Nicaragua. Within a few years this undertaking grew into what is known throughout the region simply as PROMIPAC – the Spanish acronym for the Central American Integrated Pest Management Program -- a multi-million dollar effort that has trained hundreds of non-profit staff, government personnel,

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secondary school teachers, and universi-ty faculty and researchers and with them created hundreds of farmer field schools (FFS) in El Salvador, Honduras and Nica-ragua. These farmer field schools, set up where needs present, provide hands on training with a chosen crop—whatever the farmers most want to learn about—and take the crop from seed to harvest, and sometimes even to market. Approxi-mately 30 farmers (sometimes with their families) work the half-hectare to hectare gardens, cooperating in small groups, with trainers and experts ensuring that everything that can be practiced and dis-cussed is covered. Topics include insect and disease identification and manage-ment, proper pesticide use and safety procedures, biological controls, bene-ficial insects and companion plantings, soil quality and fertilization, composting, irrigation, and intercropping, as well as local and international laws and regula-tions as they relate to the particular crops and their markets. Organic agriculture, molecular and diagnostic techniques, and organic agriculture are also covered.

The FFS also work to promote more than just IPM and technical improvements to a farm and its crops. The FFS encoura-ge the participants to develop personal discipline, an ability to learn indepen-dently, and an understanding of the value of cooperation with ones neighbors and fellow farmers. With an attention to social concerns, environmental sustaina-bility, community building and collective farming and marketing, the program is a springboard for long-term economic stability and community empowerment.

Thus far PROMIPAC has shown re-markable success. Third-party analysts conservatively estimate that over 50,000 farmers have been trained through the

field schools by more than 80 extension organizations. Early data demonstrates that pesticide use is down while crop productivity is on the rise, and numerous anecdotal observations (a survey will be conducted in the coming year) indicate that even extension programs that no longer work with PROMIPAC continue to teach IPM and other environmentally friendly practices using the field school model — exactly as Zamorano leaders had hoped.

In late 2008, the PROMIPAC team and the SDC made the decision to continue the Honduras and Nicaragua efforts for an additional four years, while PROMIPAC’s work in El Salvador would come to a close. El Salvador’s leading social and economic indicators – parti-cularly per capita income – have risen since the program began, and many extension organizations are continuing to spread the word about IPM and agri-cultural best practices.

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In the conversation below Orlando Caceres, the

project director for the El Salvador campaign

from 2001 to 2008, discusses the evolution of

the PROMIPAC El Salvador project and some

of its methods, challenges, and successes.

Tell me a bit about how PROMIPAC El Salvador approached its work.We had a technical team that coordinated the work for each of our four strategic areas: extension schools, research and bioinvestigation, educational outreach, and laws and policies. We created an annual plan for each section with a central co-ordinating group to ensure the areas were appropriately integrated. We had eight full-time team members, but many more extension workers from various non-profits and government schools and outreach groups.

What’s the difference between extension schools and educational

outreach?The educational outreach area works to better the formal education about IPM and agricultural best practices in universities and schools. We provide technical assistance and training to faculty and professors on topics including phytopathology (the study of plant diseases), weeds, the adaptation of FFS for a school or university environ-ment, technical writing, statistical analysis, and even local and international law as it pertains to IPM, conventional pesticide use, and organic certification. Of course, we incorporate our broader goals and emphasize the importance of teaching their students to implement prevention practices, pay attention to the entire environment, and to turn to a pesticide only as the last resort. The extension school area provides all the training for the trainers -- usually from nonprofit organizations and technical schools -- who then create the field schools and work directly with the farmers. We estimate we trained about 250 of these “ex-tensionistas.”

So PROMIPAC team members don’t teach at the schools?Sometimes we give a special training on a new problem or technique, but the exten-sionistas are the ones working directly with the farmers most of the time. We do visit the FFS periodically to provide specific technical assistance or support and advice and to assess how cultivation is going and how well the farmers are implementing what they are being taught. We usually attend the opening and closing of a session, and we are in regular contact for consultation.

We also help with the initial diagnostic, which is done with the farmers at the begin-ning to figure out what they know, what the environment is like, and other factors so we can adapt the curricula to the local conditions and needs.

Q &

A with

Orlando Cáceres

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What is the set-up of a “farmer field school”? I understand that this is a method of teaching that was started by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and was adapted by PROMIPAC for Central America. Field schools are set up where ever an extension group finds a need -- usually to help farmers deal with a new or increasingly prevalent pest problem or to teach them how to cultivate a new crop. In most instances, an FFS usually teaches a group of 25 to 30 farmers, who decide on what crop they will study-- such as corn, tomatoes, or beans. For about a four month period they raise that crop from seed to harvest. The parcel of land for the field school is usually a half-hectare to a hectare in size, and the far-mers team up in small groups, with each working their section of the land. They meet at the FFS a few times a week while they are also taking care of their crops at home.

We put all the technology we’re going to teach them on that parcel, so there are demonstrations every week about different aspects of cultivation. We cover planning the parcel, how to creating and transplanting seedlings, creating a substrate, choosing fertilizers and the best varieties of a plants, the types of fungi and rhizomes that are good to cultivate to protect the roots, irrigation techniques, et cetera. And of course, they learn about the pest or pests of that crop, natural enemies for the pests, and how to apply research and pest management techniques.

Why do the farmers split into groups?It helps them learn, really. They have what we call a “sana competencia,” a wholeso-me competition. Usually there are four to five groups, with five to seven farmers in a group. And each group has a name like the Fantastics, the Innovators, the Presidents, the Invincibles-- the names go right in our paperwork. So at the end of the field school session, we have a ceremony, and we invite the community, and the mayor or another local authority. We give the farmers diplomas and certificates of recognition, and there are prizes for achievements such as the farmer who learned the most, the group that worked together the best, the person who was the most collaborative, and that sort of thing. Farmers take a great deal of pride in completing the program. Often entire families attend the ceremony.

During the farmer field school session, do you cover anything beyond the harvesting of a crop?It depends in part on the plan created with the farmers at the beginning. That’s part of the beauty of the field school model, that it is so flexible so we can provide each group with the information they most want. That said, we often discuss marketing, and we cover laws and regulations, so farmers know what certifications they need for different markets and how to maintain good documentation. We usually also include some discus-sion of value added products. For example we might discuss how to try to make salsa for sale if the price of tomatoes falls to make more money from a harvest. We provide them with resources and contacts should they wish to pursue an idea like that.

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How many field schools are going at once? There can be as few as 30 or as many as 100, but one year there were 130.

Can you give me an example of the kind of investigative work that PROMIPAC El Salvador did.We had limited resources so we focused on the problems that were the most devas-tating. In the past 5 or 6 years, potato crops began to suffer from a new problem, “punta morada” or “purple top.” A farmer can lose more than half of a harvest to it. Because it was so new and potatoes are a central staple, our investigative team star-ted looking for what caused it -- identifying the source of the problem is the first step towards successful control. We identified an insect (Paratrioza cockerelli) that causes it, and after a lot of observation and testing in the labs and fields we have recently found a fungus that seems to kill the bug.

So in regards to “punta morada,” what do you teach the farmers about the insect and the disease?Potatoes can have many problems, so first we want to ensure that the farmers can correctly identify what pest is causing a particular problem. We provide examples in the field, and go over how each different problem can be identified. With Paratrio-za we show how it corrugates the leaves, the typical discoloration, how tiny bulbs or bumps grow --like tiny potatoes -- and appear on the above-ground stems and leaves. We provide them with key cards to keep for future reference. PROMIPAC took the first photos that are now used to identify the adult male and female Para-trioza cockerelli -- before our work no photos existed of the vector insect.

Of course, farmers need to know how to identify the different problems accurately and early so they can effectively manage their crops. Then they won’t end up using methods such as treating with a generic pesticide that can be dangerous, costly, time consuming and ineffective such as treating with a generic pesticide. For example, farmers need to understand and be able to identify insects at different stages in their lifecycle because for some pests you need to apply a treatment during the egg stage, for others at their larval stage. Also, since some insects such as Paratrioza cokere-lli suck nutrients out of the plant, farmers need to know that instead of a contact pesticide they need to use a systemic pesticide that the plant takes up and the insect consumes through the plant. So we teach the farmers how to identify each stage of an insect’s life, and what methods to combat it work best at each stage.

Are there techniques that farmers can apply all the time to help reduce crop problems right?Yes. We also teach them the best practices for crops. Intercropping, for example, in which crops are planted in alternate rows can help isolate incidences of a pest and keep it from harming the entire harvest. Also we teach farmers how to encourage beneficial insects some of which hunt a variety of pest insects, and we teach them about beneficial plants, some of which attract pests away from crops. [Continued...]

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Of course we teach things like soil fertility and proper irrigation, too, because just as with humans, if a plant is very healthy it is less likely to succumb to an attack of a disease. Some of these techniques help counter paratrioza.

PROMIPAC has a reputation for working hard to include women in its training programs and field schools. Why and how did that come about?Well, first women are a significant percentage of the farmers in Central America, whether they work with their husbands, or because they are single or widowed. Plus, we knew that even when only the men were working in the fields, their wives and families were still suffering from pesticide contamination. Wives help their husbands with the transportation of equipment and produce, they clean their clothing, and so-metimes when a farmer doesn’t understand the risks of the chemicals he works with he might come home and before cleaning up or changing clothes pick up a young child to give him a hug, never realizing he is exposing the child to dangerous poisons. So we knew we had to get women involved.

We ask that the extensions recruit a certain percentage of women farmers as parti-cipants (usually around 28 percent). Some of these extension groups have women groups by definition, so there’s that kind of outreach and incorporation. But another thing we started doing was requiring that the men farmers bring their wives or other adult women of the home to particular training sessions. So when a school scheduled a training in the use of pesticides or the location of particular insect pests the women of a farm were also required to attend that training.

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Do you have a final comment about the PROMIPAC program?Some of the individuals who have gone through the program are absolutely inspira-tional. Amadeo Oliva from Metapan, near the Guatemalan border, for example, a fellow who now grows a diversity of crops, has an integrated garden with everything from peppers, cucumbers, and corn to sugarcane and coffee. I think he uses every method we taught and then some to protect his vegetables. For example, he plants sorghum between rows so that it combats white flies (which are blown into the tall grass and get trapped), and he uses soap applications to fight aphids. He went from barely turning a profit on his tomatoes to having enough money not only for the basics, but to build a small greenhouse.

What’s also impressive is how much of a community leader Amadeo has become. He came to us afterwards and said he wanted to run a field school, so we found an extension group to work with him. He also now has a small business selling seedlings and also selling a substrate that he created. He takes a small amount of fecund material from the mountains, mixes it with compost, local soil, and animal waste, and lets it sit for a bit. Then the important local microorganisms rapidly re-produce. He enriches it further with mycoremediation techniques. It is just incredi-ble stuff, and all his neighbors are now using it with great success.

These are the kinds of people that really make PROMIPAC the success it is.

Groups such as these farmers learn how to make pesticides from local trees and plants.

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Zamorano University has been a part of Dr. Alfredo Rueda’s life since he attended as an under-

graduate earning a degree in agroscience 1980. He went on to obtain a B.S. in Agriculture focused on Crop Protection Management at Kansas State University in 1984 before returning to Zamorano to work in the University’s nascent IPM program.

Alfredo Rueda then left to pursue a Mas-ters in Entomology at the University of Florida before coming back to Zamorano to assume the role of Assistant Director and then Interim Director of the Crop Protection Department.

In 1994 Rueda left for a last time to earn a Ph.D. in Entomology at Cornell Uni-versity in New York where for his disser-tation he developed the research and education components for an integrated pest management (IPM) program for sweet onions in Honduras.

Upon his return to Zamorano University in 1999 Dr. Rueda assumed the role of regional coordinator for the PROMIPAC program, as well as coordinator of the phytotechnology (plant research and de-velopment) program at the University.

In addition to these responsibilities, he currently teaches classes in the biology and ecology of insects and pests, supervi-ses senior thesis projects, and continues to research, write, and consult on a wide variety of pests and IPM responses.

Dr. Rueda is a member of the Entomolo-gical Society of America and the Special-ty Coffee Association of America, among others.

Alfredo Antonio Rueda Pinzón

Biog

raph

y

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Orlando Cáceres is an expert in sustainable agriculture, IPM and good agricultural practices

(GAP), having worked in these areas for more than twenty years on outreach and education projects in Honduras, Nicara-gua, and El Salvador.

Cáceres earned an agronomy degree in 1984, and an agricultural engineering degree in 1988, from Zamorano Uni-versity. In 1992 he completed a Masters in Entomology at Kansas State Univer-sity on a Fullbright scholarship, and in 2000 earned a postgraduate degree in business administration for the National University of Nicaragua.

Orlando Cáceres Rivera

Orlando Caceres currently works as the Senior Coordinator for projects undertaken by Zamorano as part of the FOMILENIO project, an outreach effort in El Salvador funded by the Millenium Challenge Account.

FOMILENIO works to reduce pover-ty and stimulate economic growth in Northern El Salvador through a variety of training and development programs for agriculture, rural tourism, health, enter-prise development and transportation infrastructure among others.

Zamorano is a not-for-profit educational institution incorporated in the state of Delaware in the United States of

America, and registered with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as a

(501)-(c)-(3) organization. In many Latin American countries there are tax benefits

for individuals, companies, and other groups providing support to Zamorano.

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LUIS SALAZAR MARTIN SCHWARZ

LEE SHANEDAN EDSON

ADRIANA RODRIGUEZLIGIA ROMERO

NAHUM SAUCEDACourtesy of PROMIPACALEXIA ST. PIERRE F.

DON POUCHER

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