Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is an ecosystem approach to crop production and protection that combines different management strategies and practices, i.e. biological control, mechanical control, cultural control, chemical control, to grow healthy crops and minimize the use of pesticides.
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) defines IPM as "the careful consideration of all available pest control techniques and subsequent integration of appropriate measures that discourage the development of pest populations and keep pesticides and other interventions to levels that are economically justified and reduce or minimize risks to human health and the environment. IPM emphasizes the growth of a healthy crop with the least possible disruption to agro-ecosystems and encourages natural pest control mechanisms."
Since 1970s entomologists and ecologists have urged the adoption of IPM for pest control both to reduce the environmental impacts related to the extensive use of chemical pesticides and to face their inefficiencies.
The IPM goal is to maintain pest damage at economically acceptable levels while protecting the environment and human health.