Employing Natural enemies for eco friendly pest management in hill agriculture in Indian Himalayas

Abstract

Natural enemies or biocontrol agents include those organisms that are capable and helpful in managing and suppressing the insect pests infecting field crops and causing economic damage. The natural enemies have a major key role to play in controlling insect pests attacking hill crops. The hill agriculture is the cultivation of field crops in distributed patches of land in the vast matrix of forest. The crops are grown in small patches and there is vast diversity in the type of field crops cultivated. The insect pests are the major biotic stress causing agents in the present scenario of climate change in hill farming and many insect pests have gained the status of major insect pest recently. The first and foremost step taken by farmers to manage these insect pests in hill agriculture is to allow for natural control or take up insecticide spray with locally available, low grade insecticides. But, natural control along with human intervention to artificially release natural enemies would be the best strategy to manage pests at lower cost with higher effectivity. In this article we will be emphasising on major predators and parasitoids that can be easily identified by the farmers and encourage their population growth in order to exploit their services in pest management.