There is No Such Thing as IPM in Structural Pest Control

Rich Kozlovich

Recently I received an e-mail from Pest Control Technology Magazine about a conference in Orlando Florida this December. One of the speakers, Jeff Tucker, is going to speak on the subject, Structural Integrated Pest Management. Why can't we get this? There no universally accepted definitions of the IPM and Green phenomena in structural pest control; "there is no consensus as to their range, their ideological origins, or the modalities of action which characterize them". The pillars that hold up the structure of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in structural pest control are arrogance, deceit, deception, ideology, lies, ignorance, scare tactics and its foundation is the Precautionary Principle; the bulwark of junk science; and it is paid for by tax payers money and promoted by a radical government agency; the Environmental Protection Agency.

IPM in structural pest control has no logical foundation. IPM was founded as an agricultural concept and first outlined as such in 1959 in the Hilgardia, a small agricultural magazine. The logical foundation for IPM in agriculture is threshold limits. A certain amount of pests do a certain amount of damage. When the level of pests reach a threshold limit where the amount of damage they do exceeds the cost of a pesticide application; pesticides are applied. Threshold limits is the logical foundation for IPM in agriculture. What is the logical foundation for IPM in structural pest control? There isn’t one!

There will be those who declare that the Precautionary Principle is the logical basis for structural IPM, and there are those who will claim that we must eliminate pesticides because they cause all sorts of health problems claiming that is the logical foundation. Both are blatantly false! Both are philosophies based on suppositions and ideology, not science or logic. Neither can be used as a logical foundation for IPM in structural pest control.

If there is no logical foundation for a policy then it doesn’t exist, except that the government says it exists; so therefore it exists....on paper! There is only one problem. No one really knows what it means or how it is supposed to work; at least amongst normal people. Among the radical activists in the green movement and the EPA it means pesticide elimination, which is irrational and misanthropic. At least they know for sure what it means to them.

Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality. In reality if being one with the biosphere was so great; if primitive green living was so great; if organic farming was so great; if living without pesticides was so great; then why did everyone change? If we didn’t need pesticides how did they convince people to buy them? If we didn’t need anything but organic farming practices why did everyone abandon organic as soon as they could? And why did modern backward societies abandon these primitive concepts at the first opportunity if they were living in paradise? Why is it the average life span was around 50 in 1900, in what is now the developed world, if they were living in a healthier time before pesticides, modern agriculture and an environment of high levels of synthetic chemicals? Why is it that in our modern environment of pesticides, modern agriculture and high levels of synthetic we now live an average life span of around 75 years? I might also add that we live a healthier 75 years. How can this be? If all the things they claimed were true then we must ask; why are so many people living healthier longer lives? I demand an answer!

Before we abandon all that we have developed I think we had better get an answer! Especially since everything greenies have promoted has been an abject failure. Why should we think this is any different?

What they are touting as IPM in structural pest control is just pest control. The kind we have been practicing since 1850. You can monitor; you can exclude; you can clean all that you want; and those are important components of a good pest control program; and that has been true since at least 1850, but that does not make it IPM, and none of that will take the place of pesticides. We know that there is no logical foundation for IPM in structural pest control. That means it doesn’t exist....... even if the government says it does.

However, I think the thing that bothers me the most are the information deliverers and trainers in our industry who have embraced this irrational and misanthropic concept.

Explain to me again how great it is to have bed bugs! Explain to the families of those hundreds of thousands who have died from malaria, and hundreds of millions who are sickened each year from malaria that death and sickness is better than being exposed to DDT. This is the end goal of IPM in structural pest control; the elimination of pesticides! We need to get that! Our industry, our industry leaders and our industry trainers really need to get that. We shouldn’t be promoting IPM; we should be defeating it!

Recommended reading:
Animal Farm by George Orwell.
The Pillars of IPM


@@@