Abstract
This review chapter examines a wide array of insect pest control practices in rice that, at one time or another, have been conceptualized or implemented community-wide over a spatial scale, such as minimally an irrigation turnout or in a village. Complicating adoption of such practices in most of Asia is the small field size, which in many countries is becoming smaller as population pressure rubs against a non-expanding crop area. Thus, many practices such as hand removal of insect pests from the field that seem out of date and absurd in developed countries (except in the context of a small urban home garden) are being carried out as field sizes in the most densely populated areas of Asia are now equal to those urban home gardens, and have to provide food for six to eight people. Such labour-intensive practices make economic sense in areas where landless labourer populations and unemployment are high. Insecticides, which have been the mainstay of rice insect pest control since the 1950s, are no longer appropriate for all situations, and small-scale farmers cannot afford to use them or their use creates more problems than are solved.