Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a cornerstone of Scotland's approach to sustainable crop protection, supporting reduced reliance on pesticides while maintaining productive and resilient farming systems. The Scottish IPM Assessment Plan, hosted by the Plant Health Centre, provides farmers with a framework for assessing and improving their pest management practices. Over time, the tool has generated a substantial dataset containing information on farm characteristics, agronomic practices, pest pressures, decision-making processes and IPM adoption. This provides a rich evidence base on how IPM practices are being adopted across Scotland and how uptake is changing over time.

This project will undertake the first comprehensive analysis of the Scottish IPM Assessment Plan dataset. The study will investigate trends in IPM uptake, identify widely adopted and underutilised practices, assess how farm type, size and location influence IPM implementation, and examine geographical patterns of adoption across Scotland. It will also explore the behavioural, agronomic and socio-economic factors that influence pest management decisions and develop farmer typologies to better understand different approaches to IPM. The findings will provide evidence to support future policy development, targeted advice and incentives and improved knowledge exchange activities, helping to accelerate adoption of sustainable pest management practices across Scottish agriculture.

Image by Peggychoucair from Pixabay

Previous PHC projects found that biocontrol is one of the elements of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) with a role to play in mitigating pesticide withdrawals. However, it is currently unclear how practical biocontrol is as a suitable alternative to pesticides in Scotland, what the opportunities are for deployment across different sectors and what barriers exist to uptake (include regulatory).

Research on biocontrol agents is required to understand a) what relevant previous work has taken place, b) the potential benefits for agricultural, horticultural and forestry applications in Scotland, and c) is the current risk assessment framework and regulatory system fit for purpose?

This project will improve our understanding of the potential of biocontrol agents in Scottish production systems and gardens; synthesising findings from workshops with stakeholders and literature review.

Previous research shows that better informed farmers and agronomists can make better IPM decisions and score higher in IPM metrics (PHC2020/05). Research has also identified that decision making on farm is often shared between the farm agronomist and the farmer. However, there is a knowledge gap on how factors influencing IPM scores link to available impact metrics such as pesticide usage.

This project will look to improve the flow of IPM knowledge and its uptake to increase the resilience of Scotland’s crops to pests and diseases, whilst reducing reliance on pesticides.

The drivers and barriers to further adoption of IPM practices for different decision makers and for different farm types will be identified, improving the ability to tailor IPM research and knowledge transfer and exchange activities to consider, if not overcome, those barriers and improve uptake.