Integrated pest management (IPM) is a newer science that aims to give the best possible pest control while minimizing damage to human health or the environment. IPM means either using fewer chemicals more effectively or finding ways, both new and old, that substitute for pesticide use.

Technically, IPM is the selection, integration and implementation of pest control based on predicted economic, ecological and sociological consequences. IPM seeks maximum use of naturally occurring pest controls, including weather, disease agents, predators and parasites. In addition, IPM utilizes various biological, physical, and chemical control and habitat modification techniques. Artificial controls are imposed only as required to keep a pest from surpassing intolerable population levels which are predetermined from assessments of the pest damage potential and the ecological, sociological, and economic costs of the control measures. Farmers have come to understand that the presence of a pest species...