What is a primary goal of Integrated Pest Management (IPM)?

The primary goal of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is to manage pest populations without causing economic damage. This approach emphasizes a balanced, systemic method of pest control that integrates various techniques, including biological, cultural, physical, and chemical methods. IPM seeks to monitor pest levels and identify the thresholds at which action should be taken, ensuring that pest control measures are applied only when necessary and in a targeted manner.

By focusing on the economic threshold, IPM minimizes the impacts on the environment, non-target organisms, and human health while effectively managing pest populations. This comprehensive strategy recognizes that complete elimination of pests is often neither practical nor desirable, as some pests can play beneficial roles in ecosystems.

The other choices reflect less effective or more extreme approaches to pest control. For example, aiming for complete pest elimination can lead to pesticide resistance and ecological imbalance, while over-reliance on chemical controls can harm beneficial organisms and lead to environmental contamination. Thus, managing pest populations in a sustainable and economically viable way is at the heart of the IPM philosophy.