Challenges

The global population demands that the farmers grow more crops on current agricultural area. To reach this purpose, agricultural technology needs to be constantly improved to minimize crop losses and to safeguard the environment. One of the methods to overcome these issues is Integrated Pest Management (IPM).

IPM means considering all existing strategies of pest control and other measures to discourage the growth of pests, while minimize the harm to health. Efforts have been made to handle plant pests by developing farming methods, the use of resistant crops, the use of pesticides and the use of biocontrol agents such as antagonists, parasitoids and predators. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a control strategy that takes ecological control into account, so that control is not unnecessarily perturbed and causes no great loss in order to achieve maximum returns in crops growing.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) training is intended to carefully analyze all available approaches for pest control and to integrate the suitable measures to hinder the growth of pest populations and other measures. IPM stresses the growth of a healthy crop that disrupts agroecosystems as little as possible and promotes natural pest management. This will help to achieve the aims, to prevent the loss and to keep safe the environment.

To response this, the Government of the Republic of Indonesia in collaboration with Non-Aligned Movement Centre for South-South Technical Cooperation organized Online Training Course on Principals and Applications of Integrated Pest and Disease Management.

The objectives of this online Training Course on pest and disease management are:

• to review recent developments in integrated pest and disease management;
• to share experience in the application of integrated pest and disease management;
• to identify issues, impediments, and opportunities in the application of integrated pest and disease management.

This training is one of the contributions of Indonesia to the development of the agricultural under South-South Cooperation.

Toward a Solution

In this training, participants were introduced the topics on topics such as: the importance of agroecosystem ecology as the basic element of integrated pest management, tactics and methods of control of IPM and the use and prevention of pest and disease by botanical pesticide.

The basic components of the module IPM are the prevention of pests, the monitoring of pests and mechanisms for naturally occurring control and intervention, when methods of control are required. Farmer is therefore the major decision-maker in the implementation of IPM strategies. Ecological pest management can be employed to strengthen the resistance of pest and plant diseases in two methods, namely below ground and above ground.

On this training, participants learned about the required techniques and tactics to manage populations below economically detrimental levels and prevent bad effects on the environment, humans and wildlife. Participants were introduced to some control strategies employed in IPM, including cultural, physical, biological and chemical methods.

In order to be environmentally safe, botanical pesticides was also introduced as organic plant pesticides. The attractive of synthetic chemical pesticides for pest management has long been reported as botanical pesticides offer little danger to the environment and human health.

In the end, the target of the training will help to prevent loss and to boost up the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers to gain opportunities for value addition and non-farm employment, as targeted on SDG 2.3. Furthermore,  the partnership between Government of the Republic of Indonesia and the NAM CSSTC to organize this training is the implementation of enhancement the global partnership for sustainable development, complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology, and financial resources, to support the achievement of the sustainable development goals in all countries, in particular developing countries, as targeted on SDG 17.16.

While it is viewed the deem important of capacity building in agriculture products and to lessen the spread the pandemic Covid-19, this training was conducted online. E-learning and video materials were employed in addition to interactive engagement with trainers.

The Government of Indonesia (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Agriculture) teamed up with the NAM CSSTC to make the realization of the training. The Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Indonesia through its experts joined to share their expertise in the virtual training session to offer training materials and to discuss with participants.

The environmentally friendly method which employed in this training is expected make the good practice sustainable and last in the long run. The substance of the training itself exposed that pest and disease is possible to managed environmentally in order to support sustainability.

The training is considered replicable and extended widely in similar online setting, hybrid, or full offline setting.

Through this training, participants were expected to have gained knowledge on environmental IPDM, integrated pest and disease control strategies, and plant and horticultural diseases as well as learned to produce and process various fertilizers while maintaining the environment safe.