ICT based decision support systems for Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in India: A review

Pests cause significant losses to crop production in India. Excessive and irrational use of chemicals for pest control not only degrades the environment but also affects the human health due to presence of pesticide residue. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is such a technology, which combines multiple ecologically safer and economically sound pest control methods. IPM being knowledge intensive approach to crop protection emphasizes appropriate decision-making based on knowledge of interaction of the crop, pests, beneficial organisms that prey on pests and whole lot of other information. IPM practitioners or farmers require timely access to the relevant pest management information/knowledge and expertise. So the improved methods of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) such as Decision Support Systems (DSSs) greatly help the farmers in accessing the pest management information and expertise. DSSs are software tools that support decision-making activities. They collect, organize, integrate and analyze all types of information required for decision making and finally use the analysis to recommend the most appropriate action. Many DSSs have been developed for in the field of plant protection by various public and private organizations in the country which have been elaborated in this review.