THE NEED FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH IN PEST CONTROL 
Robert Glen, Assistant Deputy Minister (Research), 
Canada Department of Agriculture, Ottawa. 
The welfare of man is seriously challenged 
by the fantastic rate at which his numbers are 
increasing. Control of births, provision of 
food, and prevention of human disease must all 
receive greater attention in the immediate 
future, if present standards of living are to be 
raised or even maintained, In the short run, 
we are not likely to achieve a radical reduction 
of births in the developing countries. Nor can 
we deliberately retard medical progress. 
Therefore, we must expect a rising world de- 
mand for more food and less disease. Pest 
control is vital to both objectives. But pest- 
control measures affect the environments on 
which man is dependent for essential raw ma- 
terials. Man's well-being is likely to depend, 
in no small way, on the long-range effects of 
those pest-control practices, which he will be 
forced to use in greater and greater measure 
in the next two decades to sustain the exploding 
human population. 
An understanding of the effects of such con- 
trol measures can be gained only through re- 
search. The purpose of this paper is to examine 
the general character of the pest problem in 
the above context and the research needed, with 
special consideration of the interdisciplinary 
aspects. 
SOME GUIDELINES 
The term "pest control" is used here in the 
broad sense. In essence, pest includes any 
organism that competes with man for essential 
food or shelter or that transmits human patho- 
gens. Controlis the attainment of practical pro- 
tection from such pests. In pest control, we 
are usually concerned with pest abundance 
rather than the mere presence of the species; 
and with local infestations of distinct geograph- 
ical and physiological races rather than the 
species as a whole. Thus, the basic unitin pest 
control is the population of an identifiable sub- 
species, race, strain, or variety of noxious 
organism. This concept is well illustrated in 
plant pathology by differences in pathogenicity 

in races of cereal rusts, in entomology by dif- 
ferences in DDT resistance in strains of the 
house fly, and in agronomy by differences in 
tolerance to many factors in varieties of crops 
and weeds. 
Pest control has been pursued with great 
diversity and ingenuity. To make the point, I 
need only mention such devices as pesticides, 
parasites, predators, disease organisms, re- 
sistant varieties of crops and breeds of ani- 
mals, tillage practices, crop rotations, pasture 
management, cutting and pruning regimes, 
flooding, draining, fertilizers, hormones, 
chemosterilants, sterile male technique, 
physical and chemical attractants and re- 
pellents, controlled storage and transport 
facilities, and various combinations of these 
measures. The list could be lengthened. But it 
is surely clear that to combat pests man de- 
liberately modifies his environment. 
This is not surprising, for man's chief pre- 
occupation has been, and is, with his environ- 
ment and particularly with modifying it to his 
own advantage. He has been pursuing this 
course since he first evolved and has finally 
succeeded in wresting the control of his own 
future from the traditional and slower forces 
of evolution that previously shortened his life 
and limited his numbers. Now man is con- 
trolling and changing his environment tofithis 
special needs (1). He has made remarkable 
progress in preventing disease and in provid- 
ing food and shelter. As a result, his numbers 
have increased dramatically. The present 
Situation is such that if the current rate of 
human increase continues, the world population 
will double in about 35 years, but only if we can 
produce enough food to sustain such numbers. 
This achievement will require prudent use of 
our natural resources. 
Here then is the broad setting in which we 
should contemplate the nature and future of 
pest control: As the effective management of 
pest populations without reducing the inherent 
productivity of the environments concerned. In 
its long-term aspects, such pest control is 
essentially an exercise in applied ecology. In 


