CABI today made its ground-breaking online bioprotection resource available on three continents. The CABI BioProtection Portal helps growers and pest management advisors identify, source and correctly apply biocontrol and biopesticide products for their specific crop-pest problems.
It is increasingly clear that certain kinds of chemical pesticides in agriculture are creating serious health and environmental effects. The portal, which is predicted to become the go-to resource for identifying and sourcing biopesticides, will be particularly beneficial for growers looking to replace chemical pesticides with biological products in order to meet market or export standards, satisfy consumer demands for healthier and safer food and reduce pressures on the environment.
Dr Ulrich Kuhlmann, Executive Director, Global Operations at CABI said: “Globally, an estimated 40 percent of crops are lost to pests and diseases. The widespread use of chemical pesticides to fight crop pests alone is not sustainable either economically or environmentally in the long run especially when you factor impacts exacerbated by climate change.
“CABI is helping growers to adapt to this major challenge through projects that apply, among other things, our expertize in digital development and crop health as well as products like the BioProtection Portal which promote sustainable approaches to pest management.”
“The CABI BioProtection Portal brings together in one place the various safer and more environmentally friendly biocontrol and biopesticide products that growers can add to their ‘arsenal’ against crop pests as part of an integrated pest management plan.”
Users of the CABI BioProtection Portal enter their country and crop-pest problem query in the system and generate key information on biocontrol and biopesticide products that are authorized by national regulators for that specific search. Insights will be sourced directly from national governments’ list of registered pesticides and from partner biocontrol manufacturers.
The portal is now available in Kenya, Peru and Spain in multiple languages – and will be rolled out to more countries including Brazil and Canada in the coming months.
The innovative tool, has been made available by CABI in collaboration with its network of partner biocontrol manufacturers (Koppert Biological Systems, Syngenta, e-nema and Oro Agri) and donors (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, African Development Bank and the UK Department for International Development) who provide invaluable support in the form of technical inputs, strategic guidance and funding.
