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Goals of the Texas IPM Program are to teach and achieve clientele adoption of integrated pest management practices which result in economic, environmental, and human health benefits. The critical needs this project will address were identified and prioritized in 24 local steering committee meetings in held in 2009. <P> Priorities identified in the agricultural programs included development of programs and systems to aid growers in economic competitiveness, programs which help producers and employees work safely, and programs which help preserve and protect the environment. Water availability and quality, input costs, pesticide issues, best management practices (IPM, cultivar selection, alternative crops, production/tillage systems, etc.) marketing issues, resource conservation, and current and emerging pest issues were high priority.<P> Food safety, pest resistance (weeds, insects and diseases), loss of pesticides, and insect/disease management were important concerns. Urban IPM Committees and the School IPM Committee identified education and awareness of diverse audiences, human health, environmental quality - indoors and outdoors, IPM marketing and linkages, development of educational materials and techniques and applied research and demonstrations as their primary concerns. <P> The objectives of the program are to develop educational programming to address the priorities and needs identified by the steering committees (http://ipm.tamu.edu). <P> The IPM program will address the needs identified by their individual committee and the consensus of needs identified by IPM committees across the state through the use of multiple techniques and methods. <P> Expected outputs include: 230 issues of newsletters (reaching some 80,000 people), over 200 radio and TV programs, 35 articles in trade journals (reaching 350,000 stakeholders), four peer reviewed journal articles, eight Extension publications, four Extension Fact sheets, 20 abstracts/proceedings articles, 75 blog postings, 9 IPM websites (175,000 visits and 50,000 unique hosts), 150 newspaper articles reaching a circulation of 4 million readers, seven guest lectures in college courses, 400 scouts and consultants trained, and 30 steering committee meetings. <P> Other expected outputs include: presentations at 450 county meetings, 50 field days, 75 multicounty meetings, trainings for 800 Extension volunteers at 130 master volunteer meetings, 443 meetings providing pesticide applicator training, 160 presentations for schools, 15 presentations for civic clubs, 55 4-H club presentations, presentations at 84 professional meetings and 625 result demonstrations and applied research plots. In addition to work with adult audiences, hundreds of classrooms and teachers are benefitted from IPM taught in the public schools.<P> College level IPM Interns work with IPM Agents and learn about working in IPM with agricultural producers and urban citizens. And schools benefit from the School IPM program. This program educates school employees about ways to reduce exposure of students to pests and pesticides.
NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY:<BR> The project is based upon community need as expressed to program personnel in needs assessment steering committee meetings held in each of the 24 IPM units in 2009. The rationale is to improve the lives of Texas citizens through addressing integrated pest management needs. Methodology is addressed above (Methods Section). It includes writing hundreds of articles of informative information (newsletters, Extension bulletins and fact sheets, professional reports, blogs, websites, newspaper articles, extension reports, etc.) giving hundreds of presentations (radio, TV, county, regional, state, national and international meetings) and providing information by telephone and other means to clientele. Information on insects and other pests is provided to thousands of school children and the program works to educate college student interns and student workers about IPM during the summer. Collaborative educational work is conducted with cooperators to evaluate agricultural pest management and production techniques and methods and to evaluate techniques, products and concepts for and with urban clientele. For example, collaborative work with Habitat for Humanity teaches prospective homeowners common sense techniques for pest prevention and management. IPM Programs emphasize sanitation, exclusion, crop rotation, host plant resistance and use of techniques that remove the food, water and/or harborage for pests as primary management strategies - and pesticides as the strategy of last resort. Surveys will be used to measure the amount of change in knowledge, program adoption and impact on economic, environmental or human health among those who participate in the programs.
<P> APPROACH: <BR> The Texas IPM Program will utilize traditional and novel extension methodologies to reach clientele and achieve adoption of IPM programs. In addition to the outputs expected (newsletters, articles for the newsletters of other groups (Homeowner Associations, etc.), newspaper articles, radio/TV programs, trade journal articles, professional publications, Extension publications, web blogs and web pages, hundreds of presentations to various groups, and some 625 result demonstration/applied research projects) agents will write annual reports in which they report the educational activities they conducted each year. Copies of the reports will be made available to clientele in their communities. Also, they will write monthly activity reports which record each of their educational activities and the numbers of clientele participating. Each IPM Agent or Program Specialist will conduct an end-of-year survey to determine the outcome of their program or an important component of their program. Results expected from these reports are the economic, environmental and human health outcomes their programs have produced. The outcome reports will document changes in knowledge, changes in behavior and changes in condition that have occurred.