OPEN ACCESS | Published on : 16-Apr-2026 | Pages: 63-73 | Doi : 10.37446/edibook252025/63-73
Organic crop protection prioritizes ecological resilience and preventive measures over curative chemical control, aiming to maintain healthy soils, diverse agro-ecosystems and market-acceptable produce. This chapter describes the major strategies used in organic insect pest and disease management, including cultural and agronomic modifications (crop rotation, planting date, fertility and water management, tillage and mulches), conservation, and habitat manipulation to support natural enemies (nectar/pollen resources, refugia, hedgerows and cover crops), augmentative and classical biological control (predators, parasitoids, and entomopathogens), botanical and animal-derived formulations (neem products, Panchagavya, and cow urine derivatives), semiochemical tools (pheromone monitoring, mating disruption, and mass trapping), and organically acceptable materials (kaolin, insecticidal soaps, spinosad and microbial biopesticides). Organic farming practices do not encourage the application of synthetic chemicals or genetically modified organisms (GMOs), making pest control challenging. Constraints, including lower and variable efficacy, higher input costs, limited registered products, and market/infrastructure gaps, are discussed along with research priorities. The chapter concludes that organic pest management is not a single panacea but a suite of context-specific practices that require policy, research and market support for scaling.
Botanicals, biodiversity, neem, organic farming, pest management, pesticides
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