Fifty years of pest management evolution
Pest Management Group: An updated history
 In 1994, the late Maurice Green produced a history of the first 40 years of the Pesticides Group in which he outlined the way the group had advanced and emphasised the changes in its activities over that time. The year 2004 was the 50th anniversary of the group’s formation and Green’s excellent history has been updated by SCI Distinguished Service Award winner and ex-honorary secretary Terry Grayson to reflect the passing of another milestone. The revised version was published in March and is available through SCI honorary librarian Ian Shepherd.
What’s in a name?
Grayson tells us of the name change from pesticides (a word that was considered to have too many negative associations) to crop protection (a name that did not fully cover the remit of the group) and finally to pest management. Although this name does not cover all aspects of the activities of the group, it does return to the close association between the learned journal that was launched by the group as Pesticide Science, since renamed Pest Management Science.
Grayson takes us through the vast number of changes that have taken place in the crop protection and animal health fields internationally and describes how these changes have influenced the activities of the group. A contracting industrial base and a mature industry means that ‘pure chemistry’ meetings are no longer as popular as they once were. Instead there is a move towards integrated pest management, resistance and environmental impact and the group has been moving increasingly towards this type of meeting.
For many years the group had an associated panel, but in 2000 it was decided that the movement of the panel’s interests further towards pharmaceutical science meant that the physicochemical and biophysical panel should become a group in its own right. This is where the BioActive Sciences Group originated.
The Pest Management Group continues to organise meetings in association with a large number of internal SCI groups and outside organisations. In an increasingly competitive world cooperation with like-minded bodies is clearly the way forward.
Ian Shepherd
E: ian.shepherd@soci.org
|
