Adoption of Integrated Pest Management Strategies and Ex-ante Assessment of the Red Palm Weevil Control among Egyptian Farmers

Abstract

The study aimed to analyse the adoption rates of Red Palm Weevil (RPW) integrated pest management (IPM) practices in Egypt based on data collected from 343 farmers through structured questionnaires from three governorates: Al-shargia, Alwahat El-Bahria, and Aswant in Egypt. The overall adoption of IPM categories for RPW control was 83.85%. Egyptian farmers highly adopted the categories of legislative control (89.04%), cultural practices (88.92%), mechanical control (87.27%) and chemical control (83.85%), while they moderately adopted preventive measures (70.15%). Based on the average level of adoption of IPM practices, two farmer groups, “high adopters” and “moderate adopters”, were identified using cluster analysis. The “high adopters” represented 65.9% of the sample and had a higher adoption rate for all the RPW IPM practices than the “moderate adopters”. All three Egypt governorates were similarly ranked in terms of perception risk related to RPW. However, compared to Aswan and Al-Wahaat Al-Bahria, As-Shargia was the most vulnerable governorate regarding governance effectiveness related to RPW, characterized by lower training and public support index levels. These results point to the need to promote awareness among farmers, citizens, municipalities, researchers, non-governmental organizations, and decision-makers about the interest in adopting IPM against the spread of RPW.