Studying use of chemicals to control pests

Pest management is the domain of entomologists, ecologists, biologists, agriculturalists, toxologists and chemists. The subject is highly complex and a multidisciplinary approach seems necessary. Unfortunately, however, there has been a tendency for each specialist to only consider his/her own discipline, thereby ignoring the numerous interactions between the dynamics of pest populations, the environment, crops, etc. It is therefore important that agricultural pest management is always viewed in its ecological context and that the whole farming system is studied before it is manipulated with external pest control measures, particularly toxic chemicals. The usual approach to pest management is pest-oriented rather than crop-oriented. However, since crops are more important than pests, it is suggested that the subject should be approached through experimental variation of crop management rather than of pest control possibilities, and emphasis on data on cropping systems characteristics rather than on pest populations.