How is NPM differem from IPM?
Non Pesticide Management (NPM) is a stepping stone for sustainable agriculture. NPM refers to the pest management practices which are based on local natural resources. Understanding pest life cycle is key for pest management. Farmer field Schools (FFS) is the key activity where farmers take decisions on management practices. The main objective is to bring sustainability to agriculture based livelihoods. NPM is the logical overcome of Integrated Pest Management (IPM); if IPM is implemented in toto, leading to no chemical pesticides. IPM recommends pesticides as reactive sprays as last resort, but in practice this recommendation is not followed, as extension network is not available at village/community level. Application of even one spray of chemicals will lead to killing of beneficial insects, upsetting ecological balance and giving an upper hand to harmful insects. In NPM we took a firm stand against chemical pesticide spraying.
