Environmental and Economic and Evaluation of Ipm in Rice Cultivation
in A Developing Country-India.

• Pouchepparadjou A.; Adiroubane, S. Suntharavarathan, P. Nasurudeen
• PJN College of Agriculture and Research Institute, Karaikal, India -609 603.
• The Third International Conference onIPM Role in Integrated Crop management and Impacts on Environment and Agricultural Products. 26-29 November 2005, Giza, Egypt.

Abstract

India, which was threatened by hunger and mass starvation in 1960's, is now self sufficient in stable foods. Today the Indian Agriculture development faces unprecedented challenges specifically the environmental problems threatening the future levels of agricultural productivity as well as the health and well being of its rural people. For Indian agriculture to continue along a sustainable path of economic development, further production increase must be generated by technologies that are both profitable and more environmentally benign. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is one such green or sustainable technology in steering agriculture along a more sustainable path which uses minimal pesticides. Hence this study attempts to evaluate economic and environmental aspects of IPM adoption in rice cultivation in a predominantly rice growing area of India.

The study was based on a sample of 450 respondents who were categorized into adopters and non-adopters of IPM technology using factor analysis. The economic advantage of IPM adoption was realized by adopters with higher average yields and net return than non-adopter of IPM. The decomposition analysis of output difference of around 19 percent was attributed to adoption of IPM and use of inputs proving the superiority of IPM technology over conventional method of rice cultivation. The stochastic frontier production function estimates of efficiencies revealed that even though both adopters and non-adopters were technically inefficient, comparatively the adopters were operating with lower allocative and economic efficiencies suggesting a greater potential for IPM adopters to increase outputs using available inputs and technology.

Besides above econometric tools biodiversity index for arthropods were developed based on field observations, residue analysis were carried on the products from farms and soil micro-organisms were also studied on soil samples collected from rice fields. The Biodiversity index in adopter farms was more diverse than non-adopter farms, so was the case with reference to Evenness index, indicating more stable IPM farms than non-IPM farms. Similarly the soil micro-flora population was abundant in IPM adopted fields than non-adopted fields. The residue analysis of rice grains, straw, husk, bran, and soil revealed that the residues of organo-chlorines compounds were found Below Detectable Limit (BDL) in adopter farms whereas it was found above BDL and below the Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) in non-adopter farms. With regard to organo-phosphorous compounds, the residue of monocrotophos was above BDL as well as MRL in non-adopter farms, whereas it was below detectable limit in adopter farms.