Successful IPM implementation has three components: applicable research results, a policy change, such as removing pesticide subsidies, and a farmer participatory training programme.

Numerous IPM programmes have been implemented in developed countries. However, the successful implementation of IPM in Asia has added a new dimension, not only to IPM but to extension in general. The IPM Programmes implemented in Asia stress the responsibility of farmers for diagnosing pest problems and for participating in the development of solutions.

A process of human resource development is used through which farmers' expertise is recognized and enhanced.

IPM programmes involve farmers and field staff from national and local government units and non-governmental institutions, enhancing ecological awareness, decision-making and other business skills, and farmer confidence. IPM thus has long-lasting socio-economic benefits far beyond the field of plant protection.

IPM implementation in Asia has been supported through the FAO Intercountry Programme for the development and application of integrated pest control in rice in South and South-East Asia. This Programme, started in 1982 and has received funding from the Netherlands, Australia, Switzerland and the Arab Gulf Fund. It has assisted countries in developing IPM strategies and policies and has been instrumental in developing the concept of the farmers' field school. The key innovation was the establishment of farmers' field schools in rice in Indonesia, which has subsequently been reproduced in other national programmes.

A farmers' field school (FFS) is a group of about 25 farmers who agree to meet once a week for an entire crop season; this means 12 to 16 meetings of at least half a day each. The farmers break into five small field teams and spend one to two hours in the field making observations, counting population densities of different species, assessing crop physiological conditions and recording observations. Each team then reassembles outside the field and discusses, analyzes and interprets its data. The interpreted data are then summarized, often in a drawing of the agro-ecosystem, and presented to the whole field school. These drawings include a picture of the rice plant at the stage of growth for that week. Insects that damage the rice plant and disease symptoms are drawn on one side of the plant, while predators that destroy the rice insect pests are drawn on the other side.

The farmers' first-hand observations validate the concept of the balance of nature and of population regulation. The individual teams then discuss their observations with the other teams and come to decisions on pest control and on the need for other agronomic practices.

The understanding of the farmers is further increased through experimentation, such as studies of the effects of pesticides on natural enemies and the artificial simulation of insect damage to show that a plant can sustain some insect damage without a yield decrease.

After the first crop season, focusing on IPM in rice, FFS groups become interested in IPM for rotation crops such as vegetables and legumes.

IPM FFS are forums for community action where farmers and trainers discuss observations. The results of the meetings are management decisions. Thus IPM implementation offers a dynamic process that is practised and controlled by farmers. It is not a passively adopted product or technology.

Over recent years, a number of countries have adopted the FFS model.

A total of 670,000 farmers have been trained in Asia. Countries often use national resources to establish a Farmers' Field School Programme. International assistance to national programmes has been provided through projects by UNDP, AIDAB and ACIAR from Australia, the Netherlands, USA, Germany, the UK, Denmark, Canada and Japan.

The Intercountry Programme supports collaborative activities among personnel of these member countries and of these projects. For example, recent results from 1300 villages in Vietnam, where 155,000 farmers have been trained since 1993, showed that pesticide applications could be substantially decreased. Yields increased as farmers observed their crops more carefully and thus net benefits per hectare increased tangibly.