IPM Institute News: IPM in the Marketplace
December 2005
Volume 6 Issue No. 1
Contents
I.
Fifth
National IPM Symposium Asks, "How Has IPM Delivered on its
Promise?"
II. Seven
Companies Named 2005 Gold Medal IPM Partner Awards Winners
III.
Fifth National IPM
Symposium Spotlights Eco-labels
IV.
IPM STAR Certification
Granted to Five School Systems in 2005
I. Fifth
National IPM Symposium Asks, “How Has IPM Delivered on its
Promise?”
The Fifth National IPM Symposium,
“Delivering on a Promise,” will be held on April 4-6, 2006
at the
Adams
Mark
Hotel
in St. Louis. More than 750
professionals from all walks of IPM attended the previous event
held in 2003.
Schedule
of Events
A kickoff reception is
scheduled for the St. Louis
zoo Monday evening, April 3rd.
Small behind-the-scene tours of several exhibits will be
available, including the Monsanto Insectarium.
At
6 PM, Insectarium staff will present on their endangered species
conservation program, followed by a presentation on IPM at the zoo
by staff from Orkin, Inc, who service the facility.
After the
presentations, participants will enjoy a BBQ dinner and cash bar.
Transportation will be provided to and from the hotel and there
will be two departures from the hotel to accommodate late
afternoon arrivals. There
is a separate registration fee for this event.
The Symposium plenary session begins the next morning, Tuesday,
April 4th. After
lunch there will be various breakout sessions the rest of the
afternoon. Session
topics for the Symposium include IPM outreach, School IPM, whole
farm IPM planning, residential IPM and much more.
After the breakout sessions, there will be time to present
posters and a reception will follow the poster presentation.
Wednesday, April 5th is filled with more breakout
sessions and an evening reception held in the poster display area.
The Symposium ends at
noon
the following day, Thursday, April 6th after additional
breakout sessions and a closing session.
Poster
Submissions Welcomed
Take advantage of the
opportunity to display a poster describing your work as a
practitioner, consultant, researcher or educator.
This is open to anyone attending the Symposium. Space
is limited; poster submission deadline is
December 16, 2005. To submit a poster,
visit the symposium web site at http://www.ipmcenters.org/ipmsymposiumv/.
II. Seven
Companies Named 2005 Gold Medal IPM Partner Awards Winners
After considering a group of 71 clients for Orkin’s Gold Medal
IPM Service, a panel of IPM experts choose three U.S. and four
Canadian companies as 2005 Gold Medal IPM Partner Awards winners.
“These award winners are excellent IPM partners– they keep
facilities clean and free of clutter that can provide food sources
and harborage for insect pests,” according to Dr. Thomas Green,
president of the IPM Institute and one of the judges on the review
panel. “They also keep buildings in good repair, to keep
pests out, and use mechanical controls such as light traps to
reduce reliance on pesticides.”
Other scored elements included record-keeping, prompt responses to
Orkin’s IPM recommendations, and staff participation in IPM
training.
The U.S.
winners are:
-
Knouse
Foods, Biglerville, Pa., a fruit-processing plant
producing apple juice, sparkling cider, sliced apples, pie
fillings, vinegar, fruit cobblers and apple butter;
-
Sara
Lee Coffee & Tea, Harahan, LA, a production plant for Sara Lee coffee packets; and
-
Tree
of Life, Bloomington, IN, an organic food warehouse.
The Canadian
winners are:
-
AgraWest Foods, Ltd., Souris, Prince Edward Island, a high-volume processing facility for dehydrated potato
granules and potato flour;
-
Cavendish Farms,
New Annan, Prince Edward Island, a production facility for frozen potato
products;
-
Schneider Foods,
Kitchener, Ontario, a meat-processing facility;
and
-
Smurfit-MBI,
New Westminster,
British Columbia, a production facility for corrugated distribution packaging.
The Gold Medal
IPM Partner Awards were created in 2004 to recognize Orkin clients
who are top IPM performers. Atlanta-based
Orkin, Inc., founded in 1901, is an industry leader in pest
control services and protection against termite damage, rodents
and insects in North America.
Orkin has more than
400 locations and 8,000 employees serving nearly 1.6 million
customers.
III.
Fifth
National IPM Symposium Spotlights Eco-labels
Marketing IPM products and services to consumers is growing
rapidly, and therefore will be a major focus at the Fifth National
IPM Symposium.
According to Symposium presenter Rochelle Kelvin, consumers are
the gatekeepers voting with their dollars whether or not to
support food products grown with certifiable benefits.
Thus, IPM proponents should reach those gatekeepers when
promoting IPM-grown in the market.
The Wisconsin Potato & Vegetable Growers Association and the
Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission, have a great head start in
surveying consumers about their support for environmentally
friendly food. In
Kelvin’s session, representatives from the organizations will
share how much consumers said they will pay for products with an
environmental message and how these buyers think eco-products
should be labeled.
In a second session organized by the IPM Institute, speakers from
Rainforest Alliance Food Alliance and Consumers Union will address
impacts eco-labels have on bottom-line health, environmental and
economic measures. Consumers
Union
has been rating eco-labels for several years on a variety of
performance measures – visit www.eco-labels.org
for more information.
Two sessions will explore IPM
certification programs in new arenas – structural pest control
and landscape maintenance services.
Four experts from around the
U.S.
and Canada will share what has worked for them in developing “urban” or
“community” IPM certification standards and also what
challenges they have encountered in developing and implementing
these innovative programs.
Dr. Dan Sonke, technical and scientific coordinator for Protected
Harvest, will explain how his organization developed crop-specific
standards for its certification program, including a crop advisory
committee role, peer review and a multi-attribute index to measure
“environmental impact units.”
Along with Sonke, representatives from the Lodi-Woodbridge
Winegrape Commission and Pacific Gold Farms, a year-round
strawberry producer, will present their perspectives on IPM-based
certification.
An additional session organized by Berndt Solymar of Earth Tramper
Consulting in Ontario will review new Integrated Fruit Production systems in
Canada. Finally, Carolyn
Brickey of Protected Harvest will join Jason Clay of the World
Wildlife Fund in addressing opportunities to deliver benefits to
producers and society by linking IPM and government regulatory and
incentive programs with market-based certification.
IV. IPM
STAR Certification Granted to
Five
School
Systems in 2005
The IPM STAR
Certification Program recognizes and rewards IPM practitioners who
meet a high standard for IPM. Organizations, professionals,
services and products seeking IPM STAR Certifiication are
evaluated on many principles including:
-
understanding
of IPM principals and practices,
-
documented
monitoring and inspection of pest populations,
-
use of a
non-chemical approach to the pest problem and
-
a proven
reduction in health and environmental risk.
IPM STAR
Certification is available to a variety of professionals and
organizations including parks and recreational facilities, public
and private buildings, and school systems and child care centers.
This year five school systems throughout the country were
evaluated and given IPM STAR certification.
The school systems are:
For more
information about the IPM STAR Certification program click here.
