An extensive article at the Rodale Institute website on Integrated Fruit Production (IFP) features some familiar faces here in the Department of Horticulture:
“Greg Peck, a post-doctoral associate at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, points out that in Europe, IFP is effectively assimilating the entire market due to overwhelming retailer demand. That is, any growers who did not use IFP would be an anomaly and have difficulty marketing their fruit. In the U.S., however, only a few marketing firms currently sell under the IFP system. However, Peck believes that, ‘over the long term, governmental regulation of broad-spectrum pesticides will likely push more growers toward being de facto IFP.’ …
“Peck has done research with Ian Merwin, a professor in Cornell’s department of horticulture specializing in sustainable fruit production in the U.S. and abroad. They wrote in a report that both IFP and organic ‘apple production systems offer an alternative to the conventional apple production systems that have the potential to adversely affect agroecosystems and the environment at large, agricultural workers and their families, and the health of consumers.’”
The article goes on to summarize the results of Greg and Ian’s IFP work. Read the whole article.