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Insecticide resistance is an ever-increasing problem that threatens food production globally. Within Australia, the grain industry has a renewed focus on resistance due to diminishing chemical options available to farmers and the increasing prevalence and severity of resistance encountered in the field. Chemicals are too often used as the major tool for arthropod pest management, ignoring the potent evolutionary forces from chemical selection pressures that lead to resistance. A complex array of factors (biological, social, economic, political, climatic) have contributed to current trends in insecticide usage and resistance in the Australian grain industry. We review the status of insecticide resistance and provide a context for how resistance is currently managed. We discuss emerging technologies and research that could be applied to improve resistance management. This includes generating baseline sensitivity data for insecticides before they are launched, developing genetic diagnostics for the full complement of known resistances, expanding resistance monitoring programs, and utilizing new technologies. Additional benefits are likely to be achieved through a combination of industry awareness and engagement, risk modeling, adoption of integrated pest management tactics, greater collaboration between industry stakeholders, and policy changes around chemical use and record keeping. The Australian grain context provides lessons for other agricultural industries. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry., (© 2018 Society of Chemical Industry.)

Integrated pest management (IPM) is a broad-based approach for addressing pests that negatively affect human and environmental health and economic profitability. Weeds, insects and disease-causing pathogens (diseases) are the pests most often associated with IPM. A systematic review, widely used in other scientific disciplines, was employed to determine the most commonly studied IPM topics and summarize the reasons for these trends and the gaps. In a field synopsis of the literature, 1679 relevant published papers were identified and categorized into one of the following five broad areas: IPM and organic (organic), climate change and pests (climate), rural and urban IPM (rural and urban), next-generation education (education) and advanced production systems (technology). Papers were examined in greater detail for at least one of the three main pests in a systematic review. A majority (85%) of IPM papers have been in the area of rural and urban IPM, primarily addressing agriculture (78%). Professionals, landowners and the general public were the focus of a majority (95%) of IPM papers on education. Technology is an increasing area of focus in the literature. Over the past 40 years, IPM papers have primarily (75%) addressed insects and been limited mostly to rural and urban settings. Climate change, technology and education specific to pest management studies are increasingly being published and will help broaden the focus that could result in increased adoption and development of IPM. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry., (© 2017 Society of Chemical Industry.)

Background: Invasive mammalian pests have inflicted substantial environmental and economic damage on a worldwide scale., Results: Over the last 30 years there has been minimal innovation in the development of new control tools. The development of new vertebrate pesticides, for example, has been largely restricted due to the costly and time-consuming processes associated with testing and registration., Conclusion: In this article we discuss recent progress and trends in a number of areas of research aimed to achieve long-term population suppression or eradication of mammalian pest species. The examples discussed here are emerging from research being conducted in New Zealand, where invasive mammalian pests are one of the greatest threats facing the national environment and economy., (© 2013 Society of Chemical Industry.)

Background: With growing globalization and trade, insect incursions are increasing worldwide. A proportion of incursions involve pests of major economic crops (e.g.Mediterranean fruit fly), conservation value (e.g. tramp ants) or health significance(e.g.mosquitoes), and maybe the targets of eradication programmes. Historically, such responses have included the use of broad spectrum insecticides. However, with increasing public awareness of the negative aspects of pesticides, new environmentally friendly and effective techniques are needed. Here, we review and evaluate a range of selective to broad-spectrum tactical options for suppression which either have, or show potential for, integration within arthropod eradication programmes., Results: Most of the available technologies have their roots in pest management, but higher efficacy is required. Further refinement may be needed for use in eradication. Integration of several tactics is usually needed, as compatible tools can be used simultaneously to target different parts of the pest life cycle. However, not all technologies are fully compatible; for example, the simultaneous use of mass trapping and the sterile insect technique (SIT) may be suboptimal, although sequential application may still be effective., Conclusions: Broad-spectrum insecticides are generally incompatible with some biologically based technologies such as the SIT, but may be used to reduce the population so that density-dependent tactics can be used. Several novel technologies with fewer nontarget impacts have been proposed in recent years, and need to be properly evaluated for their applicability to insecteradication. Overall, there are still major gaps in surveillance and selective eradication technologies for most insects.

Background: This paper discusses U.S. agricultural pesticide use trends from 1964 to 2010 based on estimates developed from USDA surveys, and the influence of economic factors, agricultural policy, and pesticide regulation on aggregate quantities and mix of pesticides used., Results: Synthetic organic pesticide use grew dramatically from the 1960s to the early 1980s, as farmers treated more and more acreage. Use then stabilized, with herbicides applied to about 95% of corn, cotton, and soybean acres, annually. Subsequently, major factors affecting trends were: (1) changes in crop acreage and other economic factors, (2) use of new pesticides that reduced per-acre application rates and/or met more rigorous health and environmental standards, and (3) adoption of genetically engineered insect-resistant and herbicide-tolerant crops., Conclusion: The use of pesticides and other control practices responded to economic factors such as input and output markets and agricultural policies. Changing societal values toward pesticide risks and benefits profoundly affected pesticide policy, influencing the pesticides available for use, but only indirectly affecting aggregate quantities used. While the current pesticide regulatory process might have economic inefficiencies, it might be consistent with policy preferences held by much of the public-to reduce pesticide hazards rather than minimize regulatory costs., (Published 2013. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.)

Spinosyn-based products, mostly spinosad, have been widely recommended by extension specialists and agribusiness companies; consequently, they have been used to control various pests in many different cropping systems. Following the worldwide adoption of spinosad-based products for integrated and organic farming, an increasing number of ecotoxicological studies have been published in the past 10 years. These studies are primarily related to the risk assessment of spinosad towards beneficial arthropods. This review takes into account recent data with the aim of (i) highlighting potentially adverse effects of spinosyns on beneficial arthropods (and hence on ecosystem services that they provide in agroecosystems), (ii) clarifying the range of methods used to address spinosyn side effects on biocontrol agents and pollinators in order to provide new insights for the development of more accurate bioassays, (iii) identifying pitfalls when analysing laboratory results to assess field risks and (iv) gaining increasing knowledge on side effects when using spinosad for integrated pest management (IPM) programmes and organic farming. For the first time, a thorough review of possible risks of spinosad and novel spinosyns (such as spinetoram) to beneficial arthropods (notably natural enemies and pollinators) is provided. The acute lethal effect and multiple sublethal effects have been identified in almost all arthropod groups studied. This review will help to optimise the future use of spinosad and new spinosyns in IPM programmes and for organic farming, notably by preventing the possible side effects of spinosyns on beneficial arthropods., (Copyright © 2012 Society of Chemical Industry.)

The large-scale commercial cultivation of transgenic crops has undergone a steady increase since their introduction 10 years ago. Most of these crops bear introduced traits that are of agronomic importance, such as herbicide or insect resistance. These traits are likely to impact upon the use of pesticides on these crops, as well as the pesticide market as a whole. Organizations like USDA-ERS and NCFAP monitor the changes in crop pest management associated with the adoption of transgenic crops. As part of an IUPAC project on this topic, recent data are reviewed regarding the alterations in pesticide use that have been observed in practice. Most results indicate a decrease in the amounts of active ingredients applied to transgenic crops compared with conventional crops. In addition, a generic environmental indicator -- the environmental impact quotient (EIQ) -- has been applied by these authors and others to estimate the environmental consequences of the altered pesticide use on transgenic crops. The results show that the predicted environmental impact decreases in transgenic crops. With the advent of new types of agronomic trait and crops that have been genetically modified, it is useful to take also their potential environmental impacts into account.

Pesticides pose a difficult problem for policy makers as society generally seeks to reduce any adverse impacts of their use, while industry claims they are important contributors to economic success. Attempts to direct policy according to scientific findings are hampered by the multidimensionality of the potential impacts of pesticides which may affect consumers, operators, wildlife and the environment. Pesticide risk indices seek to reduce these multidimensional impacts into a single dimension and have been increasingly used to understand variation in the hazard posed by pesticides at both field and regional level. This study uses one such risk index, the environmental impact quotient (EIQ), to estimate the hazard posed by pesticide usage from 1991 to 2003 on several vegetable crops grown in the UK. Results are reported for the EIQ and for the environmental impact (EI) for brassicas, peas, beans, onions, leeks, lettuce and endives. The EIQ is a dimensionless estimate of the toxicity of a product, while the EI, which combines the EIQ with data on actual usage, estimates the overall hazard of the use of a product. The exact trends in EIQ and EI varied with crop over the period 1991-2003, but overall the EIQ decreased by 19% and the EI decreased by 34%. However, the mean EI per hectare decreased by only 3%. This suggests that some of the observed reduction in EI at the national level may be related more to decrease in crop area than changes in pesticide use and management. If these observed losses in crop area are being replaced by vegetable imports from overseas, then this raises the possibility that the UK is effectively exporting any problems related to pesticide use. The ethics of this remain unclear., (Copyright (c) 2006 Society of Chemical Industry.)

The drivers which influence the types of crop protection most needed by agriculture are changing. A polarisation of approaches has resulted in the needs of organic agriculture and biotechnological agriculture, which can be identified as the current extremes of the spectrum, becoming very different. The main requirements of these two sectors are identified here and used as the basis for questioning future EU research requirements in crop protection. Factors affecting/influencing organic farming and the use of genetically modified crops are discussed in some detail.