IPMWORKS: Demonstrating and promoting cost-effective IPM strategies

In the face of rising pesticide resistance and the need to reduce the use of chemical pesticides, the change in agricultural production and crop protection methods is a major challenge in Europe. Farmers and their advisors are looking for new ways to improve crop protection through holistic approaches to integrated pest management (IPM).

IPMWORKS is a network of farms throughout Europe, supported by the H2020 programme, dedicated to farm demonstration and peer-to-peer knowledge exchange at the EU, national and local scale, focusing on IPM and other aspects of farming.

Building on several established national networks, including the LEAF network in the UK, 21 new hubs have been launched in 14 European countries. These new hubs are divided into 5 sectors and each hub has 10-15 demo farmers within it. Apart from organising demonstration activities these hubs organise knowledge sharing among farmers and promote co-innovation activities to help farmers design their own IPM strategies.

On-site demonstrations are based on “success stories” of farmers implementing a range of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) tactics. IPM includes a stronger use of ecology-based processes, more diversity and more biodiversity, eventually combined with innovative technologies (robotics, precision agriculture, Decision Support Systems and biocontrol). Quantitative data are collected to support the demonstration that “IPM indeed works”, i.e. is efficient and cost-effective, and does not undermine yield performance.

Resources produced by this project, as well as any other open access IPM resource, can be accessed via the IPMWORKS Resource Toolbox.