Fatemeh Razzaghi Borkhani - PhD student in Agricultural Extension
Hosein Shabanali Fami - Associate Professor, Faculty of Economy and Agricultural Development, University of Tehran
Ahmad Rezvanfar - Associate Professor, Faculty of Economy and Agricultural Development, University of Tehran

Since chemical pesticides can pose serious threats to human health and the environment, sustainability, so reducing pesticide usage, application of integrated pest management (IPM) practices have emphasized to increase suppression of pest problems with minimum impact on environment, human health and access to sustainable agricultural development, (achieve environmental, economic and social sustainability). IPM applies a combination of practices including biological, chemical, and cultural that it enables farmers to reduce their reliance on pesticides while increasing crop production, food quality and safety and profitability. since 1990s the adoption of integrated pest management technologies in rice fields of north Iran close to the Caspian Sea, was started with accentuate the importance applying Trychograma bee in order to pests biological control, and now, by production field farmer school (as one of extension-participatory methods), these technologies are introducing to farmers. Farmers are important in the process of adoption and application of IPM technologies. Therefore, reducing pesticide usage and application of IPM practices, requires changing farmers perception and behaviors, improving farmers’ attitude, strengthening communication with farmers to extension experts, it is recommended that extension agents state clear advantages of IPM practices accompany with the empowerment of farmers and their participation in decision-making process by using delivery methods such as field demonstration and farmer field schools (FFS) are proper methods to achieve this purposes.

Integrated pest management (IPM); technology; application; farmer field schools (FFS) ; sustainable agriculture