Pests and diseases of crops cause great losses to farmers worldwide every year. Major pests of plants include insects, pathogens (fungal, bacterial, mycoplasma, and viruses), nematodes, and pathogenic weeds. The losses incurred in terms of yield and the cost of control measures amount to billions of dollars annually. Loss of crop cover exposes large swathes of soil to the risk of water and wind erosion, which is a major evnironmental management and conservation challenge. In addition, most of the pests and losses necessitate application of large volumes of pesticides, which pollute the environemnt and also pose a risk to people applying the chemical, as well as to animals within the targeted farmlands. Pesticides are also known to inadvertently kill various species of often beneficial and usually non-target organisms, which leads to erosion of biodiversity. There are however more benign options for managing crop pests but these are applied to a small scale globally. This page will provide links to various publications and sources of information that are meant to help mankind understand and better appreciate the threat posed by crop pests and diseases. Improved understanding should hopefully lead to development of more effective pest management measures as well as more judicious use of the tools available to farmers today. We welcome all to contribute any publications or information resources that will contribute towards achieving this goal.