In Urquillos, a small farming village in Peru's sacred valley of the Incas, crop losses from potato tuber moth have dropped over the past two years from 72 percent to almost zero. Today, increasing numbers of farmers in Urquillos, and in surrounding villages, are using biologically friendly, integrated pest management (IPM) methods rather than chemical insecticides. The switch from hazardous pesticides is the result of technologies developed at CIP and the work of community leader Maritza Marcavillaca.

"In past years," Marcavillaca said recently, "we tried to control the moth with insecticides, including parathion, but the results were poor and we noticed that many of our people became sick from the chemicals." Insecticides, she noted, were not only expensive, but some Urquillos residents thought they were responsible for a rash of miscarriages and illness in the village.

Through the University of Cusco, Marcavillaca contacted CIP to inquire about alternative pest control practices. "CIP receives many such requests, but we refer most to local authorities," says CIP IPM leader Fausto Cisneros. "In Urquillos, we found a dynamic grass-roots organization willing to invest its own resources in a new technology, and willing to work hard to make the technology work." Marcavillaca is the leader of the Urquillos Women's Club, an organization of some 25 women, all of whom are directly involved in potato and maize production. Starting in 1994, club members, working with CIP IPM specialists and economists, began experimenting with a series of practices that can be used to control tuber moth in seed stores, including the use of native repellent plants, sex pheromones, and a baculovirus. The baculovirus, which can be manufactured within the community, kills tuber moth larvae but is harmless to humans and animals. It is produced by selecting and grinding virus-infected larvae from damaged potato tubers and then mixing them with ordinary talc.

The Urquillos program offered a unique opportunity for participatory research in which the members of a grass-roots organization and scientists could work together and learn from one another. Its success has led several neighboring villages to follow suit. Today, Marcavillaca and her colleagues give seminars to neighboring farmers using educational materials provided by a local nongovernmental organization, Peru's National Institute for Agricultural Research, and CIP. Her long-term goal is to get all farmers in the area to use IPM. Urquillos residents, she says, have formed an informal association to teach the new techniques in neighboring villages. But the task has not been easy.

"It was really hard to convince people to change their ways. I would talk and talk but no one would listen or believe me," Marcavillaca notes. "What happens is that people are used to using pesticides because it's a lot easier, but it's also more dangerous, and most people don't know that."

According to CIP agricultural extension specialist Oscar Ortiz, some of the most important things farmers have learned through the Urquillos program are a general knowledge of the pest's life cycle and the dangers of insecticides, which together enable them to make use of IPM component technologies. Many farmers, he notes, have begun using IPM methods on maize as well. "Our philosophy is not to impose on or pressure farmers to use IPM," explained Ortiz. "In this case, the farmers of Urquillos tried out and accepted the new methods, and chose to share their experience with others."

"Pesticide use was always a very big worry for me," Marcavillaca said recently. "So, as a woman and a mother of this village, I knew I had to do something—and I did."