Integrated Pest Management encompasses many settings, disciplines, and people. This program aims to form a cohesive, harmonized, and collaborative IPM network with information about IPM, including its process, the people who practice it, and resources for those that want to know more about the discipline.
This page features the IPM Enterprise section, Farming and Food Narrative Project, and Tactical Sciences.
The Public IPM Enterprise are the researchers, extension educators and others who develop and deliver IPM solutions to the American public. They work at universities, research labs and extension centers, in several scientific disciplines and across hundreds of institutions. The effort includes 53 state and territory IPM programs and four Regional IPM Centers, primarily supported by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture through the Crop Protection and Pest Management program.
The Public IPM Enterprise Strategic Plan is our collective effort to unite these diverse public programs and focus our efforts on a unifying vision: “A nation where everyone can access the integrated pest management information, tools and services they need to protect their health, home and livelihood.”
The Strategic Plan for the Public IPM Enterprise outlines specific needs, tasks and priorities that can be addressed as those investments are made.
IPM Evaluation Program – David Lane, Cornell and Tegan Walker, NC State
Economic Analysis for IPM Programs – Allan Pinto, Cornell
Urban IPM Strategic Plan – Janet Hurley, TAMU
In 2016, the non-profit food hub Red Tomato, led by Michael Rozyne, began a project titled “The Farming and Food Narrative Project (FFNP).” This project, a collaboration among IPM Voice, FrameWorks Institute, and Red Tomato, aims to map differences in narratives about farming between experts and the public. Red Tomato’s team intentionally includes agricultural and social scientists, as well as food and farm practitioners. They believe in having many voices at the table from the start.
In 2024, FFNP released Reframing Farming: A Communications Toolkit, which highlighted six reframing strategies that agricultural voices can use to better connect farming practices with those who might be unfamiliar with them. Some of these reframing strategies include “start with farming, not food,” “make the story about interconnection,” and “speak directly to historical and contemporary inequities.” The toolkit also spends a great deal of time discussing mental models, or societally ingrained beliefs about farming, and ways to “bridge and pivot” when in conversation with others. There are tips that specifically highlight how to talk about pesticides and different ways to think through social media posts. However, perhaps the most impactful and readily usable strategy is the tightrope metaphor.
The communication toolkit presents the tightrope metaphor as an impactful way to illustrate the complexities of farming. In addition, the tightrope metaphor can be used to explain concepts that are difficult to quantify when the stakeholder is outside the field. The tightrope brings up words such as “balancing, crossing, leaning, stabilizing, or wobbling” and can be especially helpful when explaining policies or even social inequities.
Tactical Sciences Network programs provide critical detection, diagnostics, and response and response functions to address these threats in real time. Together, these programs comprise a coordinated network of capabilities that form the backbone of our national pest and disease response infrastructure, ensuring the biosecurity of the U.S. food and agricultural system, valued at about $220 billion.
USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA)-funded Tactical Sciences Network programs span a broad “threat-response continuum” and include key infrastructural pillars:
The “This is IPM” Initiative is managed by the Southern IPM Center. The Regional IPM Centers are supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture through agreement 2022-70006-38002. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and should not be construed to represent any official USDA or U.S. government determination or policy.