ENDURE's IPM Training Guide fits in with the concept of IPM as a systems approach, allowing users to adapt its contents to their own plant protection systems as they evolve to meet national IPM targets.
ENDURE views IPM as a continuously improving process and the guide is designed to help trainers create their own training modules. It is composed of different elements, including informative sheets, leaflets, recommendations and links, following four main topics requested by trainers: arguments, methodology, tools and contents. In addition, the guide offers two suggestions for IPM courses.
ARGUMENTS
Why is IPM an advantage to farmers? The ENDURE IPM Training Guide offers some arguments about the advantages of IPM, which can be used in a training session to help initiate change through reflection, to establish a group or to allow progress along the IPM continuum to be maintained. The arguments are divided into three topics: economic, social, environmental and health.
METHODOLOGY
IPM is a matrix of concepts, principles and concrete recommendations so it is often relevant to use a participatory training approach to establish mutual understanding of IPM. ENDURE training group members have experience of this and can also draw on the expertise of the sociologists in the ENDURE Network. Thus they can share recommendations on how to facilitate learning through sharing experiences and experimentation. This section is divided into three topics: tactical training techniques, training tools and preparation of sessions.
TOOLS
As IPM is a continuously evolving process, training should not stop with just one course, but needs to be prolonged after courses or between two courses. In this section you can find post-training information to maintain contact with trainees. It includes sources of information at both national and European Union levels and case studies of participatory IPM programmes.
CONTENTS
This section includes ‘ready-to-use’ modules and checklists on how to build a training module on a specific topic. It is designed so that trainers can use some of the information here to build training sessions locally. The modules give concrete examples on how general IPM principles are, or could be, implemented in practice.
IPM Course
These IPM courses are suggestions made by ENDURE’s training group for advisers and trainers involved in IPM training in Europe. Because there are large differences in the technical, agronomic and climatic characteristics of crop production in Europe, and thereby in the importance of various pest types and IPM measures, it was decided to make two course suggestions, one mostly relevant for northern Europe and one for central and southern Europe. The idea behind the courses is a one-week course covering the eight principles of IPM. It is important to emphasise that adaptation to local farming, cultivation, environmental and socio-economic conditions is always necessary, as it makes the courses more concrete, understandable and feasible for the participants. These courses are designed as suggestions to inspire you to design your own IPM course.
Species
Training in Integrated Pest Management (IPM) will be of crucial importance as European nations grapple with the complexities of ensuring IPM becomes a field reality in the coming years. To help the process, ENDURE’s training experts have produced an IPM Training Guide, which can now be downloaded from this site.
