Eco-smart pest management in rice farming: prospects and challenges

The insect problem is accentuated in intensive rice cropping where the insects occur throughout the year in overlapping generations. Over 800 insect species damaging rice in one way or another, although the majority of them do very little damage. In India, about a dozen of insect species are of major importance but the economic damage caused by these species varies greatly from field to field and from year to year. Insect pests cause about 10-15 per cent yield losses. Farmers lose an estimated average of 37% of their rice crop to insect pests and diseases every year. This review focuses on precision farming tools being used in rice pest and diseases management viz., forecasting model for real-time pest-advisory services, hyper-spectral remote sensing in pest damage assessment, computer-based decision support system, disruptive technologies (mobile apps).