University of Missouri #IPM50

Resources mentioned:
http://www.ipm.missouri.edu 

For more information on IPM in the North Central Region visit www.ncipmc.org 

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to a special pest central limited series celebrating the 50th anniversary of integrated pest management. This collaborative effort focuses on the history, and future of IPM in the north central region, and features university faculty and agency staff interviews from around the region.
This work is supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and the north central IPM center. This podcast is edited and produced by Michigan State University extension. MSU is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer. Michigan State University extension programs and materials are open to all.

Mandy (00:58):
Happy 50th anniversary IPM, from the University of Missouri.

Sam Polly (01:03):
Happy 50th anniversary IPM, from University of Missouri.

Mandy (01:07):
I'm Mandy Bish, the IPM coordinator at the University of Missouri. Here with me today is my cohort, or partner in crime, or colleague, Sam Polly. Sam is our PSEP coordinator, the university of Missouri. He's very knowledgeable about everything pesticide safety oriented. We're excited to have him here today.
I'm going to start this episode, set it up with a little historical factoid. Approximately three fourths of American households use pesticides, with one third using insecticides in the absence of pest with 4.4 billion home applications. That's a lot of pesticides being applied, and it kind of sets us up for today's episode, which is discussing the spray and go mentality. So Sam, can you define for us what the spray and go mentality is?

Sam Polly (01:55):
Sure. What we see is a lot of people who apply pesticides without making sure the pest is actually present, or at a harmful level. On the flip side of that, not going back and making sure the application was effective. There's two different terms that kind of go hand in hand. It's safe and effective. Both those come back to following the label, and proper training, and good application technique. Basically, what we find is this ties in with American culture. We're in such a hurry to get something done quickly. We don't want to take the time to look into the science, and be informed if it's really appropriate. I have colleagues with master's degrees setting bug bombs off in their houses, inappropriately. All kinds of examples of misuse of pesticides because people panic, they're in a hurry. It's blind pest control. A lot of times it's in the field, we call it blow and go, but that's the spray and go mentality.

Mandy (02:51):
Thanks. So, full disclaimer, I have yet to invite Sam and his family over to my house, because I don't know where I'll end up on this evaluation here. Getting back to the real business. Let's talk about the consequences of that type of mentality. What are some of the consequences of this approach?

Sam Polly (03:07):
Yeah. The three major consequences... Pop up in my head every time. One, is human health. The stories I get in my position of farmers using their arm to mix the pesticide when the agitator is broken. They soak it right through their skin, and end up in the hospital, or with rashes, and don't go to the hospital because they're embarrassed, or don't want anybody to know. The different health effects from that kind of thing. Kids actually being poisoned. Unfortunately, I hear about those. I have pictures of those. Human health effects are phenomenal, and there's all the... Everybody's heard about the Monsanto lawsuits with Roundup, which that's a whole other issue, but you start thinking about cancer, and some of these autoimmune disorders going around. You look at those particular people you know with those, and they're handling of disinfectants, and pesticides with no gloves, no eye protection.
It makes you wonder. That's a real problem is human health, and it's so avoidable. The second thing would be environmental health. I have just recently, one of our specialists sent me a picture of a pond with dead fish all over the surface. They let their drift of their pesticide hit the pond. Boom, the fish are done. Water quality issues, bee kills. I have pictures of bee kills. It's just, again, avoidable. If people would follow the label, and use good practice. The third thing, this is one that people don't really think about so much. It's unfortunately something I'm very familiar with, increased regulations. This hurts us all because pesticides are really like firearms. My kids and I go out, and shoot deer, and ducks, and we eat those. That's how we get cheap, and healthy food. We follow the 10 commandments of firearm safety.
We point the weapon in the right direction. We keep them unloaded unless we're actually going to shoot the animal. It's the same thing with pesticides. If you use them properly with good science, and good training, they're safe and effective, but unfortunately a lot of the public that makes the big fuss, and claims to be green, or organic, or safe. They're actually the ones you can see doing a lot of misapplication because again, they're in this hurry, give me now culture. The health environment and regulatory issues, as we mess up with pesticides, what happens is those pesticides get banned, or severely restricted. That just inhibits our ability to take care of termites, or bed bugs in the home, or disinfect the surfaces and food preparation facilities. It's really having a lot more impact than most people realize on the regulatory realm.

Mandy (05:43):
Thanks for that. Sorry. I guess I have another question on this it's off script. Do you think that this mentality is lack of education, or it is all about the haste? The fast paced lifestyle, or is it a combination?

Sam Polly (06:00):
I think it's really a combination. There's a tremendous amount of lack of education. Even with all the effort of extensions, and some of the different organizations, departments, and natural resources. Different organizations that do pesticide training around the country, there's a big gap that we need to do a better job of bridging. To get the information into people's minds, but at the same time, shift the culture and change the attitudes as a part of our education.

Mandy (06:31):
That kind of brings us to the solutions to this spray and go mentality. You want to talk a little about those?

Sam Polly (06:38):
Yeah. That's really what I think there's a huge movement right now, all over the country, as I talk to my colleagues in my realm of pesticide safety education. I think it's still something that's being addressed, but trying to better engage society. What I mean by that, not just having some fact sheets sitting in an extension office in a county somewhere, or having a couple of blogs that three people read, but really getting out in the community's face, and engaging them in such a way that they stop and listen say, "Oh wow, I need to make change." That's what true education is about.

Mandy (07:22):
Why don't you tell the audience a little about some of the efforts you've started? You've been here since 2021?

Sam Polly (07:28):
Yeah. Twenty...
Something like that. Year and a half.

Mandy (07:32):
Go ahead, and tell the audience a little about some of your initiatives to work on this education.

Sam Polly (07:38):
My job description is really to train our commercial applicators, and our private applicators, which would be the farmers. I knew just kind of instinctively, we have to reach the kids. We have to reach the next generation. The things I just kind of hit the floor running with, and I thought it would be further down the road, but I got some opportunity, and I ran with it. I developed a youth curriculum. I've gotten to go out to 4H, and FFA events, and teach a couple thousand kids just in my first year. This thing just kind of developed a life of its own. It's starting to take off. Other extension, people have heard about it, seen a little bit of it, and they're starting to get excited, and want to be involved. That just spreads it because I can't be everywhere at once.
What I've done is, I developed a curriculum that's fairly short, anywhere from 10 minutes to maybe 40 minutes. I do an engaging sort of fast pace, I guess you could call that rapid change up kind of a program where I engage the kids, and keep them thinking. I catch them off guard on some questions, and exercises that they maybe spurt out an answer, and it's wrong. No, actually it's this, and they're like, "Huh?" I catch them off guard to shake them up, jump to a different style of presentation to go from an intense story of pesticide application gone wrong, where one of my coworkers got poisoned to maybe showing them some actual chemicals that looked kind of interesting, and different colors, and that kind of thing. Then, maybe have a little catastrophe. I'm actually developing, with one of our horticulture specialists, a fake spill. Where he spills something on the ground, and it reacts, and smokes, and that kind of stuff really engages kids, and keeps them thinking.
The first few presentations I had, I had kids who were actually like some of the troublemakers of the classes, come up and say, "Mr. Polly, your presentation was the best one in the whole event." They're really excited about it. Their teachers are like, "Wow, I learned so much here today." So, they're excited. I could see right off the bat, this is working, and I have the right idea. I'm trying to build this, and advance it, but other people are starting to want to get involved, and more opportunities are popping up.
People in other states are starting to look at it. I think that's really the model we should be following in all of our other training. Having more hands on live demonstrations that engage people, and they come away thinking, "Wow, that was worth my time." That's the problem we've had talking to my pesticide applicator trainers is they've had a hard time grabbing a hold of that. They're also busy. Now that I'm here, I'm able to start coordinating this, and getting some excitement in the educational community, and in the learning community, our audience. That's kind of where we're heading with that.

Mandy (10:24):
Yeah. Sam has done... We've only had time today to really talk about the youth activities, but he's also formed very strong relationships with the state specialists, which is in turn helping update our commercial application materials as well.
If you have any questions, or want more information on some of Sam's tips, you can reach him by email. It's polly... S?

Sam Polly (10:48):
It's S-J-P-K-K-F. They really changed the system when we came here.

Mandy (10:53):
You can look him up on extension. We also have our website, which is IPM.missouri.edu, and our IPM social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, hopefully someday TikTok, right?

Sam Polly (11:06):
Yeah.

Mandy (11:07):
The Missouri department of agriculture, and the USEPA also have resources. So, thanks again for listening today, and happy anniversary IPM.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
Thanks for joining us to celebrate the 50th anniversary of integrated pest management. Check the show notes for resources mentioned in this podcast, and be sure to subscribe, so you don't miss any future episodes.