Integrated Pest Management Data for Regulation, Research, and Education: Crop Profiles and Pest Management Strategic Plans

Crop Profiles and Pest Management Strategic Plans are two sources of data that describe current and historical pest management practices for settings (e.g., agricultural commodities, schools, specialty crops, etc.) in the United States and territories. The development of documents began in 1998 as a response to the Food Quality Protection Act to ensure the collection of required data for the registration of pesticides. These documents are primary sources for government agencies, growers, crop consultants, and scientific researchers to understand and communicate production practices and issues. The documents include crop settings, priorities, worker activities, production practices, locations, pollinator protection, pests, beneficials, controls (biological, cultural, physical, and chemical), efficacy, resistance management, ecotoxicity, and timelines. Stakeholders can access these documents through the National IPM Database. The database includes functionality to develop and edit documents as well as Application Programming Interfaces to add data to the Crop Profile and Pest Management Strategic Plan documents. Current Application Programming Interface partnerships are with Bugwood and the National Pesticide Information Center. The document creation and Pest Management Strategic Plan workshop process with federal and state regulators, IR-4, state Extension professionals, industry, and grower participants is described. Potential future development of the National IPM Database is to serve as a repository for grower production guides. In conclusion, the accurate and up-to-date Integrated Pest Management data are a vital input in the regulatory process for the review of existing critical pesticides and the registration of safer alternatives.