Quantifying farmer awareness and knowledge of beneficial insects in Alberta crop fields

Dr. Emma C. Stephens, AAFC Lethbridge

Start Date: December 1, 2020
End Date: November 30, 2022

AWC’s funding: $48,900

Insect pests remain a major challenge in Canadian Prairie crop production. Every crop field is an ecosystem with pest, neutral, and beneficial insects. Beneficial insects provide economic value through consuming large numbers of crop pests. We believe that producers are more highly aware of pests than of beneficial insects. Reported farmer use of any kind of biopesticide in Alberta, including beneficial insects, is less than 1%. This is likely due to a combination of lack of information for producers about beneficial insects, as well as perceived low economic and risk management value in comparison to insecticides. But it is not currently possible to examine these factors in more detail, as in-depth data about farmer awareness of beneficial insects does not

exist. The proposed project can help answer these questions by creating a detailed baseline assessment of farmer knowledge of beneficial insects, as well as their preferred insect pest management practices. The survey will also capture other important correlates of pest management decisions, like access to information, pest costs and risks. Having this data will help better target farmer outreach activities to increase the use of beneficial insects to manage common field crop pests where feasible by cataloging producer information levels and identifying possible reasons for differing levels of information and awareness of the value of beneficial insects across producers.