In a nutshell the answer to this question is profitability. Area Wide management (AWM) has worked very well on my farm. One of the reasons l know this is because of the bench marking used in Michael Boyce & Co comparative analysis. Our farm is continually in the top 20% for low growing costs and the top 20% for yields. Profit and sustainability is what really drives us all otherwise I wouldnt have kept going since 1978. Profit at the expense of sustainability is short sighted to say the least. AWM is a tool that helps to keep costs down and keep our farms sustainable. AWM is really well suited to Integrated Pest Management (hereafter called IPM)it should be remembered that IPM is not only about insect control it is about varietal selection, positioning of Ingard fields, trap cropping, nitrogen rates and timing maximising beneficials, product selection and evaluation. It is interesting to note that in 1999 -2000 the Macintyre Valley as a whole has had an average of 6 sprays on the conventional cotton and 1.5 sprays on INGARD. I know there is a lot of different reasons for this outcome but it must be noted that this was the first year that IPM and AWM have been widely used.