In California, IPM Slowly Giving Way to SPM

In a pistachio orchard, pest control is a choice made among imperfect options: what is present, what might work, and what else a treatment could affect. California’s new pest-management vocabulary asks the state to consider that wider field of consequences, too.

Integrated pest management is already familiar across California agriculture. The Department of Pesticide Regulation describes it as an ecosystem-based approach in which pesticides are used only when necessary, a definition that leaves room for monitoring and nonchemical controls alongside sprays. That established approach is not being discarded.

A wider frame for pest control

Sustainable pest management, or SPM, is presented as an evolution of IPM: a whole-system approach that weighs human health and social equity alongside broader environmental and economic consequences. The difference is partly one of scale. The question is no longer only whether a pest can be controlled; state policy is also meant to consider the costs and effects around that control.

That distinction matters because a new label can sound like a new field rule. The reporting describes a change in how the state approaches pesticide policy, not a blanket prohibition, a pistachio-specific treatment schedule, or a new instruction for orchard crews.

The state’s policy machinery shifts

The statutory change came through AB 2113, enacted in 2024. It formally placed SPM in state law and changed how DPR funds, reviews, and regulates pesticides, with the stated aim of moving away from reliance on higher-risk chemicals. The law’s reach is at the agency level, rather than a named pistachio commodity program.

For pistachio operations, the useful distinction is between the framework and its eventual applications. The available reporting does not identify a new DPR requirement for pistachio growers, a county-specific change, or a compliance date.

The practical test will arrive in the agency’s choices: which pesticide programs receive support, what evidence weighs in reviews, and how the broader goals are applied to particular pest-control decisions. Agri-Pulse’s account of the transition describes the direction of travel, but does not supply a pistachio-specific rulebook.