New Sustainable Farming Incentive for Integrated Pest Management 2022-07-15

Register your interest in guiding development of new IPM standard, tools and guidance​

ADAS, SRUC and the NFU are looking for farmers and growers to help guide the development of a new Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) Standard for Integrated Pest Management (IPM). This new Defra-funded project will develop tools and guidance to provide reliable information for farmers, growers and advisers making IPM decisions.
The SFI aims to help farmers manage land in a way that improves the sustainability of crop production. This new standard will focus on ways that combine, cultural, biological, physical and chemical tools to manage diseases, weeds and invertebrate pests in an environmentally sensitive way.
To support the standard, an online IPM decision making tool is being developed to assist farmers and growers in producing IPM plans specific to their farm and cropping system. Practical guidance will be created on how to use this online tool. As part of the development, farmer motivations and barriers to implementing IPM on farm will be examined.
Participants involved in the project will be reimbursed for their time.

ADAS Technical Director for Crop Protection, Dr Neil Paveley says

“With key active substances disappearing from the market and resistance on the rise, we need to step up implementation of IPM to maintain effective control of invertebrate pests, weeds and diseases. The ultimate goal of this ‘test and trial’ project is to provide farmer, growers and advisers with tools and reliable guidance to try new IPM methods. We need growers to get involved in the development now so when the SFI standard does come out, it is relevant and useful for all growers.”

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NFU Senior regulatory affairs adviser, Dr Chris Hartfield said

“This new project builds on the Test and Trial work we did last year and aims to provide more of the evidence to support Defra to build SFI options that support farmers and growers in delivering more IPM. This aligns with the NFU ambition for invertebrate pest, weed and disease control decisions to be made as part of an IPM approach.”

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The information gathered from this process will inform the SFI Standard for IPM, which is due to be rolled out in 2023.

Follow the link to register your interest: