California Farmers battle thousands of plant diseases, weeds and insects that threaten crops. One weapon in their arsenal is the use of Integrated Pest Management. IPM is an ecosystem-based strategy that uses a combination of biological controls, habitat manipulation, changes in cultural practices and the use of resistant varieties. Applying beneficial insects, trapping pests on adhesive tape and disorienting aphids with bright reflective plastic mulch are just a few of the creative methods farmers use to ensure a safe and abundant food supply. Farmers get a helping hand from bats, burrowing owls, kestrels and other winged creatures that live on farms.
Bats control night-flying insects such as moths, stinkbugs and naval orangeworms.
Clean air is important to California agriculture. While plants and trees provide life-giving oxygen, they also help to clean the air. Each acre of rice cleans about 23,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere-as much as is produced by an average car in a year. California's 1 million acres of cotton fight smog by removing about 325,000 pounds of ozone each day. Farmers are using cleaner-burning engines to power tractors, harvesters, irrigation pumps and other farm equipment.