About the Southern Region IPM Center

Our Mission

The Southern Region Integrated Pest Management Center (SRIPMC) fosters the development and adoption of IPM, a science-based approach to managing pests in ways that generate economic, environmental and human health benefits. We work in partnership with stakeholders from agricultural, urban and rural settings to identify and address regional priorities for research, education and outreach. Click the links to download a copy of the 2011 SRIPMC summary (pdf) and proposal (pdf).

Background

The Southern Region IPM Center is one of four regional Integrated Pest Management Centers funded by a grant from the USDA CSREES's (now the National Institute of Food and Agriculture) Integrated Research, Education and Extension Competitive Grants Program - Integrated Pest Management. Section 406 of the Agricultural Research, Extension and Education Reform Act of 1998 (AREERA) authorized the establishment of the program that funded the regional IPM Centers. Each of the IPM Centers serves one of four regions of the country: Northeastern, Southern, Western, and North Central.

Geographically, the Southern Region IPM Center covers the following states and territories: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, the U. S. Virgin Islands and Virginia.

Western Region       North Central Region       Southern Region       Northeastern Region

SRIPMC's Role in the Southern Region

The Center coordinates, enhances and facilitates the flow of resources and information in integrated pest management on a regional basis, including grants management, data acquisition and sharing, infrastructure development, and the documentation needed to provide accountability for resources used. The Center focuses its efforts on meeting the goals described in the National Roadmap for Integrated Pest Management,while maintaining the regional nature required for effective IPM programs.

The Center provides leadership and coordination for the identification of priority IPM needs and issues through multi-state and multi-organization collaboration in the southern region. The Center provides the infrastructure for the development and sharing of current and new pest management technologies among federal and state agencies, impacted organizations, and pest managers. The Center coordinates its programs with state-based extension IPM implementation programs located at land-grant universities in each state including the Pesticide Safety Education Program; with existing regional pest management programs such as the multi-state IPM technical committee (SERA3-IPM), Sustainable Agricultural Research and Extension, IR-4, Southern Plant Diagnostic Network; and with USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) programs such as Crops at Risk, the Pest Management Alternatives Program, and the Risk Avoidance and Mitigation Program.

The Center structure is designed to accommodate diverse pest management programs and perspectives, connect all stakeholders, and effectively deal with pest management issues. An important role of the Center is to facilitate effective communication among government agencies, colleges and universities, the agricultural community, and other interested stakeholders. Participating stakeholders serve a dual communications role: to represent their own group to other Center partners and to represent the work of the Center and its partners to their own group.

The links below explain more about specific functions and structure of the Center.

Center Personnel

Center Committees

Funding and Projects

SRIPMC Annual Report

Center Activities

Strategic Plan

Communications Plan