ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Insect Sci.
Sec. Insect Economics
Volume 5 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/finsc.2025.1582496
This article is part of the Research TopicPest-Smart Strategies For Improved Eco-Efficiency In Agriculture, Forestry And CommunitiesView all articles
Tracking sustainability in crop pest management in the United States using an eco-efficiency index
Provisionally accepted
- 1North Carolina State University, Raleigh, United States
- 2Center for Integrated Pest Management, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States
- 3School of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
- 4Department of Statistics, College of Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States
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While agricultural pesticides are considered essential to ensuring global food security, their use carries significant environmental and human health risks. One strategy to reduce the risks associated with pesticide use is Integrated Pest Management (IPM). IPM is a science-based, decision-making process that integrates multiple pest management tools and strategies to minimize economic, human health, and environmental risks. Despite its potential, IPM has seen limited funding and adoption in the United States partly due to a 2001 government report highlighting the lack of a measurable reduction in pesticide use. To address these concerns, this paper proposes the development of an index designed to quantify, track and incentivize IPM adoption. One method for developing such an index is the concept of eco-efficiency, which is defined as the ratio of productivity to environmental impacts. To demonstrate the potential application for this index, eco-efficiency scores were calculated for ten crop groups in the United States from 1992 to 2018 using crop production data and pesticide use data, including the toxicity and mass of active ingredients applied. This index serves as a valuable tool for monitoring eco-efficiency progress over time and identifying priorities for IPM research and extension efforts.
Keywords: Eco-efficiency1, Integrated Pest Management2, Pesticide Risk Assessment3, Pesticide Use Trends4, sustainability5, Agricultural Productivity6, Pesticide Externalities7, Toxicity levels
Received: 24 Feb 2025; Accepted: 16 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Love, Magarey, Holderman, Carley, Maggi and Giertych. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Roger D Magarey, Center for Integrated Pest Management, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, 27606, North Carolina, United States
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