The Sixth International IPM Symposium, "Transcending Boundaries," will be held March 24–26, 2009, at the Oregon Convention Center, Portland, Ore.
Symposium sessions will address IPM across disciplines internationally, in agriculture, the market place, urban settings, greenhouses, and more. Plenary speakers include:
• Aziz Lagnaoui, World Bank IPM specialist, who will address transcending international boundaries
• Janjo deHaan, Wangeningen Research Center, The Netherlands, expert on IPM in multifunctional cropping systems
• Pierce Jones, director of the Program for Resource Efficient Communities at the University of Florida, who is incorporating IPM practices into planning and establishing new communities
• Sara J. Scherr, director of Ecoagriculture Partners, an international partnership to promote increased productivity jointly with enhanced natural biodiversity and ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes
Program proposals are currently being sought in mini-symposia, workshops, poster sessions, and a series of brainstorming sessions. Program proposals within these sessions should address topics of great importance in transcending boundaries to the advancement of IPM. Brainstorming sessions will be related to IPM adoption, training, marketing, systems design, and other topics submitted by the participants. The goal of these sessions is to stimulate creative thinking and actions for making progress in specific areas of IPM. Program proposals for mini-symposia, workshops, and brainstorming sessions must be submitted by April 18, 2008, online at http://www.ipmcenters.org/ipmsymposium09/. Suggestions sent earlier must be resubmitted in response to this announcement. A call for poster submissions will be announced at a later date.
The number of each type of session will be limited, as will the number of accepted posters due to space constraints. The program planning committee will review all proposals and try to accommodate as many as possible. As in the past, limited “Program Enhancement” funds for speaker support are anticipated. Preference will be given to speakers who would not normally attend the event. Details about requests for these funds will be made available after the proposals have been submitted.
If you have questions regarding the format or development of the program, contact co-chairs of the program planning committee: Margaret Appleby (margaret.appleby@ontario.ca or
613-475-5850); Robert Hedlund (rhedlund@usaid.gov or 202-712-4188); or Greta Schuster (greta.schuster@tamuk.edu or 361-593-4116).
More than 650 professionals from 23 countries representing industry, government, universities, and non-governmental organizations attended the previous very successful 5th IPM symposium, held in 2006 in St. Louis, Missouri (http://www.ipmcenters.org/ipmsymposiumv/).
For up-to-date information on the 6th Symposium, visit: http://www.ipmcenters.org/ipmsymposium09/. To receive future notices about the Symposium, send your e-mail address to ipmsymposium@ad.uiuc.edu.