Pest Control in Primary Sector: Towards the Identification of Knowledge Gaps

Abstract

Pest control provides important and useful services in rural and urban environments, activities, and value chains. Despite the significance of them, under operational, environmental and food security and safety terms, there are still gaps in the awareness level of targeted groups. Therefore, in the current work, we have carried out questionnaire-based surveillance to pest control operators in Greece and Cyprus, in an attempt to illustrate their knowledge regarding pest control in conjunction with demographic characteristics. In this context, the results underlined the need for further training in all aspects of pest control, but also relative activities that are often are operated by pest controllers, such as food safety activities and applications in the urban and sub-urban environment. The replies that had been obtained during the survey showed good correlations of knowledge with specific variables, such as the size of the company, the age group, and the educational background, in conjunction with the country in which the professional activities are carried out. To our knowledge, this is the first work of its kind, in terms of pest controllers’ perceptions and self-evaluation, illustrating specific knowledge gaps that have to be alleviated towards improved services in urban pest control, especially in sensitive urban areas and facilities, and improved measures for safety during the applications.

Keywords

• pest control operators
• food safety
• urban pests
• public health
• safety
• biocides