Mittwoch, 26. August 2015

Food Security – The Role of Plant Protection

If we talk about Food security, we also have to talk about Plant Protection.
In the Workshop „Food Security - the Role of Plant Protection“ of the 18. International Plant Protection Congress (IPPC) ten people of important institutions from eight countries presented their work and role in Plant Protection. The chairman of the workshop, the entomologist Elvis A. Heinrichs from the University of Nebraska (USA) guided this interesting and really important workshop.
The first speaker, J. E. Bowman from the United States Agency of International Development (USAID), presented the role of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in USAID´s “Feed the Future” initiative. “Feed the Future” is an U.S. Government leadership to fight global hunger and improve food security in countries of Africa, Asia and Central America. The “Feed the Future” agencies work hand-in-hand with partner countries to develop their agricultural sector and the IPM plays an important role. IPM means to decrease or eliminate the need for expensive agro-chemical inputs, while maintaining or increasing yields, enhance environmental sustainability, but also to improve the farmer`’s income. IPM tools like insect/plant hormones, biopesticides, precision pest modeling at farm level, and broader spatio-temporal modeling at landscape scale can be combined to achieve maximum impact in agroecological production zones. “Feed the Future” will be supported by U.S. universities, National and International Research Centers, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the local and international private sector.


Marlene Diekmann from the German GIZ (Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit) presented projects currently funded by GIZ which play a role in Food security and Integrated Pest Management.
Hari Sharma from International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT/India) explained effects of global warming and climate change on insect pests, crop pests, plant resistance, pest management and bioefficacy of insecticides. The global change will engineer a change in the relative composition of herbivores and carnivores. And disrupt the balance between the insect pests and the natural enemies. Global warming may results in breakdown of resistance to certain insect pests. The relative efficacy of bio-pesticides, natural plant products and synthetic pesticides will also change as a result of climate change. There is a need to have a concerted look at the effects of climate change on IPM technologies, and devise appropriate strategies to mitigate the effects of climate change on crop production and food security.
H.R. Macauly, General Director of the African research organization “AfricaRice” presented the role of food security in Sub-Sahara Africa and the development in the rice production.
Zhou Xueping from the Institute of Plant Pathology at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science gave an overview of the most important plant diseases and insect pests and the distribution in China. Overusing of pesticides caused seriously problems in China. Pesticide contaminated soils, crops and a decreasing biodiversity induces China to a national strategic plan to reduce pesticides.
CropLife International is a global trade association which represents the interests of the leading pesticide and plant science companies. K. Jones, the Director of CropLife, presented their work to food security. Food security means also a proper handling with pesticides. CropLife is focused on training to the proper use of pesticides.


J.W. Ketelaar from the Federal Agricultural Organization (FAO/Thailand) presented “Save and growth – A policymakers guide to the sustainable intensification of smallholder crop protection”.


Dr. Bilal Khan from the Department of Entomology of the University of Agriculture in Pakistan described a new predatory mite species of the genus Agistemus (A. burewalaensis) as a bio-control agent in Pakistan.
Dr. Karim Maredia from Michigan State University (USA) presented different programs for the education about food global food security at U.S. Universities.
T. Walter from the “Identification Technology Program” (Colorado/USA) and G. Norton from the Universty of Queensland (Australia) presented different digital technologies for pest identification and diagnosis.

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