Work programme 2: Develop/promote holistic and ecological approaches/methodologies for IPM technology development and harmonize these across localities

Background

Certain pests cause severe damage and losses across cropping systems agroecologies and geographic locations, and the problems they create simply refuse to go away. For example, whiteflies and whitefly-transmitted viruses are major threats to the production of cassava in Africa, common bean in Latin America, and vegetable crops throughout the tropics. Similarly, leaf miners cause havoc worldwide in a variety of cropping systems. Stemborers and parasitic weeds are equally area-wide problem in a variety of cereal-1egume cropping systems. Pest soil biota threaten food production whilst other soil biota enrich soil fertility. Furthermore, post-harvest IPM research is much neglected. For many of these system-wide problems, farmers’ coping strategies alone are ineffective. Inter-connectivity between research centers individually working on the problems would bring benefits of scientific expertise to bear on threats posed by pests to food security and livelihoods.

Principal activities

• Develop, test, and evaluate client-oriented IPM concepts/approaches to strengthen stakeholder capacity to develop and implement IPM
• Identify and analyze pest constraints/plant health risks in target agroecosystems
• Unravel trophic relationships in target agroecosystems to increase understanding of pest problems and identification of IPM opportunities
• Develop, test and evaluate IPM options, approaches and tools to reduce crop losses with minimal adverse effects on personal and environmental health

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