and Integrated Pest Management - part - usaid

222 PFuS'IICIDE MANAGFMI'NT' AND IPM INSOU'I11I'AS'T ASIA
reinforced changes in rural societies by reaching and mobilizing individuals.
Mass mobilization campaigns have been particularly successful in Tanzania and
the Peoples' Republic of China (McAnany 1973, Searle 1979, Smith 1978).
From these campaigns, some lessons have been learnt on how to effectively use
communication media to support development projects. Among the important
points are the need to ascertain the total circumstances of the farmer and the
community as a first step in designing a learning system, the stress on selecting
and prioritizing the content of messages, and the proper application of the
conmmunication media or channel strategy (Escalada 1985, Smith & Ray 1985).
Thus, information delivery or diffusion programs are now seen as teachinglearning
systems in which learning is organized around users' needs and local
comlblllication resources.
The communication campaign reported ir,this paper was generally intended
to motivate rice farmers to attend training on IPC. Specifically, it aimed at
exploring the potential role of communication media to create a demand among
rice farmers for IPC training, to evolve and implement a communication
campaign on IPC in selected rice-growing municipalities, and to document and
evaluate the effectiveness of the communication campaign.
NIARKEIT ANALYSIS
Two rice-growing municipalities in Western Leyte were selected as the site
of the communication campaign: Albuera and Ormoc. A third municipality,
Kananga, was designated the control area with which to compare the results of
the campaign. Village-level investigations were conducted to determine the total
circumstances of rice farners and their communities such as their needs and
problems, socio-econom ic background, communication habits, and knowledge,
attitudes and practice on IPC.
A combination of quantitative and qualitative research approaches was
utilized, particularly the use of survey, informal talks with key informants, and
participant observation. The baseline survey of rice farmers' knowledge,
attitudes and practice (K-A-P) on IPC yielded the results reported below.
Knowledge of IPC
The aggregate analysis revealed that respondents had low to moderate
knowledge of crol) protection. The items which the majority of respondents had
no knowledge about were:
1. Resistant rice varieties need less pesticides than susceptible varieties.
2. There are insects/animals (natural enemies) that help control insect pests.
3. The effect of natural enemies, feeding on insect pests in the rice crop, is a
lower pest population.
4. The best way to conserve natural enemies is to follow the economic
threshold level method.
5. Insecticides also kill most of the natural enemies.
6. Only the affected portion should be sprayed when several patches of rice crop
-re found to he severely infested with pests.