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USAID awards VA Tech $18 million grant to implement IPM program in Africa and Asia

Posted in Climate change, Emerging/invasive pests, Food Security, Grants, IPM, Pests, Weeds, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 22, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Press Release

Virginia Tech University

Friday, December 19, 2014

Blacksburg, VA, USA

University awarded $18 million to implement integrated pest management program in developing countries
Virginia Tech has won a new $18 million, five-year grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for a research program that will work to raise the standard of living of people around the world through environmentally sound agricultural practices as part of Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative.
The Feed the Future Innovation Lab (formerly Collaborative Research Support Program) for Integrated Pest Management will conduct research and extension activities with farmers, counterpart universities, and host-country government research institutes to implement ecologically sustainable pest and disease control strategies. The predecessor programs to this new award have been led by Virginia Tech University for the past 21 years.
USAID recently announced that Virginia Tech would once again lead the program, a move that represents a vote of confidence in the work that has been ongoing since 1993. The new program will have a strong foundation in areas such as sustainable intensification, ecological service provision, ecological research, and empowerment of women farmers.
“We’ve been forming partnerships, conducting research, and getting to know farmers all over the world for the past two decades,” said Rangaswamy “Muni” Muniappan, who has led the Innovation Lab since 2006. “Our work has shown great results, and we look forward to continuing the fight against hunger.”
The competitively-awarded program will address new and emerging pest problems that plague farmers in the developing world, as well as model and manage the spread of invasive species. Program scientists will also be investigating ways to preserve biodiversity and offset the impacts of climate change on agricultural pests and diseases.
The new Innovation Lab, managed by Virginia Tech’s Office of International Research, Education, and Development, will commit its core resources to Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania in Africa and to Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, Nepal, and Vietnam in Asia.
The Asian arm of the program will include two main sub-programs: one focused on rice in Burma and Cambodia, and a second on horticultural crops in Cambodia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Vietnam. The Nepal program will additionally address integrated pest management for grains and climate change impacts.
The projects in eastern Africa will focus on innovative crop protection research for increased production and preservation of high-priority Feed the Future staple crops like maize, wheat, and chickpea in Ethiopia; rice and maize in Tanzania; and high-value vegetables in Kenya and Tanzania. The program will also research and implement new strategies to control existing and emergent pest infestations in countries where farmers with limited resources are predicted to be heavily affected by climate variability.
“This program has been working on the ground with poor farmers, making a difference in their lives, and contributing to global food security,” said Guru Ghosh, vice president for Outreach and International Affairs at Virginia Tech. “We’re pleased to have the opportunity to learn from past challenges and build on our successes.”
As in all the previous phases of the program, U.S. researchers will strengthen and forge new partnerships with international colleagues and work directly with farmers. The core tenets will remain unchanged: The program will strive to reduce pesticide use, increase food production, improve health, and make a difference in the lives of poor people in developing countries all over the world.
“A small innovation in a farmer’s life can have a huge impact on their family and on succeeding generations,” said Muniappan.

About Feed the Future
Feed the Future (www.feedthe future.gov) is the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth and trade that increase incomes and reduce hunger, poverty and undernutrition.

About USAID
USAID is the lead U.S. Government agency that works to end extreme global poverty and enable resilient, democratic societies to realize their potential.
About Virginia Tech
Dedicated to its motto, Ut Prosim (That I May Serve), Virginia Tech takes a hands-on, engaging approach to education, preparing scholars to be leaders in their fields and communities. As the commonwealth’s most comprehensive university and its leading research institution, Virginia Tech offers 225 undergraduate and graduate degree programs to more than 31,000 students and manages a research portfolio of $496 million. The university fulfills its land-grant mission of transforming knowledge to practice through technological leadership and by fueling economic growth and job creation locally, regionally, and across Virginia.

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Brazil: GMO ‘Bt corn’ no longer resists pest attack

Posted in Biotechnology, Host plant resistance, Insect-plant interaction, tagged , , , , , , , on August 5, 2014| Leave a Comment »

The Ecologist

2nd August 2014

http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/2501027/brazil_gmo_bt_corn_no_longer_resists_pest_attack.html

 

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Fall armywom larva in a sweetcorn ear.

Photo: Judy Baxter via Flickr

 

 

 

 

 

GMO corn varieties that express insecticidal Bt toxins are failing in the field, with reports of infestations of the fall armyworm on Bt corn in Brazil and the USA. Now the EU is poised to approve one of the failing varieties for use on European farms.

There are barely any non-GMO seeds available … it is very uncomfortable that the companies are blaming the farmers.

The Association of Soybean and Corn Producers of the Mato Grosso region (Aprosoja-MT) has complained that its members’ genetically modified ‘Bt corn’ crops are no longer resistant to insect pests.

That’s corn which has been genetically modified to produce an insecticidal toxin that repels or kills pests – principally Spodoptera frugiperda, also known as fall armyworm, corn leafworm or southern grassworm.

The Bt toxin is meant to provide protection to the crop without needing to be sprayed with insecticide. But reports from farmers allege that the Bt corn is actually less resistant to attack by Spodoptera caterpillars than non-GMO varieties.

Now farmers have been forced to apply insecticides to their crops, racking up additional environmental and financial costs – after having already paid a premium price for the GM corn seeds.

Deceptive advertising?

The loss of resistance to Bt corn caterpillars was identified by Aprosoja-MT in March, when the first reports of emerged from Mato Grosso producers frightened by what they saw on the field.

Aprosoja-MT began to gather technical reports with data, photos and economic analysis of producers’ financial losses, estimated at $54 per hectare in terms of extra insecticide and application costs.

The association is now calling on Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, and Dow companies to offer solutions as well as compensate the farmers for their losses.

“We want companies point to a rapid solution to the losses and also a way to compensate those who were harmed”, says the president of Aprosoja-MT, Ricardo Tomczyk. “It is a typical case of product that promised an outcome that was never delivered – i.e., deceptive advertising”

Blame the farmers

The association has given the seed companies ten days in which to offer solutions to the problems presented by the GM varieties, as well as a way to compensate the losses faced by farmers in Mato Grosso.

But Monsanto and other seed companies are unlikely to accommodate the farmers. According to Reuters, “seed companies say they warned Brazilian farmers to plant part of their corn fields with conventional seeds to prevent bugs from mutating and developing resistance to GMO seeds.”

However Tomczyk responded that the seed companies instructions on creating insect refugia of non-GMO corn were vague and hard to follow. And in any case, he added, “There are barely any non-GMO seeds available … it is very uncomfortable that the companies are blaming the farmers.”

Aprosoja-MT is attempting to negotiate an agreement with the seed companies, but insists that farmers are ready to sue for their pesticide costs.

Not for the first time

Earlier this year, a similar problem arose in the US, when scientists confirmed that corn-destroying rootworms had evolved to be resistant to the GMO corn engineered to kill them.

And according to the non-profit TestBioTech, the GMO maize 1507 -which may soon be approved for cultivation in the European Union – is one of those now failing in Brazil.

This maize variety, developed by US companies Pioneer/DuPont and Dow, combines a Bt insecticidal protein with tolerance to glufosinate herbicides.

According to a study published in the journal Crop Protection, certain pests in Brazil are becoming resistant to this maize line only few years after market approval.

Farias et al. (2014) found resistant populations of Spodoptera in the federal states Bahia and Rio Grande del Sul. According to the authors, development of resistance in fall armyworm was first noticed in 2012, the third year after the start of cultivation of maize 1507 in Brazil.

Industry response – add more GM traits

The industry response to such loss of efficacy is not to encourage biodiversity, but to further modify the organisms, according to TestBioTech:

“The case of Brazil is an example for an overall trend showing that nearly twenty years after the start of commercialization of Bt crops, there are problems in several countries growing this kind of genetically engineered crop.

“Industry tries to tackle this issue by commercialization of so called ‘stacked traits’ that produce several different Bt toxins. The best known example is Monsanto’s SmartStax maize that produces six different Bt toxins.”

TestBioTech also argues that the European Food Standards Agency should re-consider its likely approval for maize 1507 given the fast developing resistance to it among pests, also citing “fundamental data gaps in risk assessment.”

Further information:

Farias et al. (2014), Field-evolved resistance to Cry1F maize by Spodoptera frugiperda (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) in Brazil
Industry influence in the risk assessment of genetically engineered Maize 1507 (2014)
Genetically engineered maize 1507 – Industry and EFSA are disguising true content of Bt toxin in the plants (2014)
High-Level-Risk-Maize 1507 (2013)Testbiotech figure: Bt crops: Resistance development in pest insectsA fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) caterpillar in a sweetcorn cob. Photo: Judy Baxter via Flickr.

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Old ways help modern maize to defend itself

Posted in Insect-plant interaction, Insects, Nematodes, Research, tagged , , , , on July 21, 2014| Leave a Comment »

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 3-Jul-2014

Contact: Caroline Wood
cwood4@sheffield.ac.uk
44-7771-765335
Society for Experimental Biology

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-07/sfeb-owh062714.php

 

Many modern crops have high productivity, but have lost their ability to produce certain defence chemicals, making them vulnerable to attack by insects and pathogens. Swiss scientists are exploring ways to help protect 21st century maize by re-arming it with its ancestral chemical weapons.

The researchers, led by Dr Ted Turlings (University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland), found that many varieties of modern maize have lost their ability to produce a chemical called E-β-caryophyllene. This chemical is normally produced by traditional ancestors of modern maize roots when the plant is under attack from invading corn rootworms. The chemical attracts ‘friendly’ nematode worms from the surrounding soil which, in turn, kill the corn rootworm larvae within a few days.

The scientists used genetic transformation to investigate if restoring E-β-caryophyllene emission would protect maize plants against corn rootworms. After introducing a gene from oregano, the transformed maize plants released E- β-caryophyllene constantly. As a result, these plants attracted more nematodes and suffered less damage from an infestation of Western Corn Rootworms.

“Plant defences can be direct, such as the production of toxins, or indirect, using volatile substances that attract the natural enemies of the herbivores” says lead scientist, Dr Ted Turlings (University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland). One of the types of toxins that maize plants produce against their enemies is a class of chemicals called benzoxazinoids. These protect maize against a range of insects, bacteria and fungi pests, yet some species have developed resistance against these toxins and may even exploit them to identify the most nutritious plant tissues.

These results show how knowledge of natural plant defences can be practically applied in agricultural systems. “We are studying the wild ancestor of maize (teosinte) to find out which other chemical defences may have been lost during domestication of maize” Dr Turlings added. “These lost defences might then be reintroduced into modern cultivars”.

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EU: A pest management toolbox to reduce pesticide use

Posted in IPM, legislation, Monitoring, Pesticides, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 1, 2014| Leave a Comment »

YOURis.com

28 March 2014
by Jean-François Haït

Integrated pest management gains momentum due to European regulations on pesticides reduction. But the challenges are to integrate all alternative methods and to get farmers involved.

Read more: http://www.youris.com/Bioeconomy/Agriculture/A-Pest-Management-Toolbox-To-Reduce-Pesticide-Use.kl#ixzz2xbCVlyvg

Reducing the level of pesticide use in agriculture is a priority in Europe. A 2009 EU Directive states that the use of pesticide must be compatible with sustainable development. In particular, it encourages so-called integrated pest management (IPM) initiatives. IPM consists in combining available biological, genetic and agricultural methods to fight pests—such as weeds, bacteria, viruses, insects and fungi – rather than using extensive pesticide spraying.

Now the EU-funded PURE research project, due to be completed in 2015, aims at providing practical IPM solutions to reduce dependence on pesticides in selected major farming systems in Europe. “Our final objective is to provide farmers a toolbox for implementing IPM,” says Françoise Lescourret, director of research at the plants and cropping systems in horticulture laboratory at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), in Avignon, France. She is also the project coordinator.

The research focuses specifically on six cropping systems: wheat and maize as field vegetables, as well as pomefruits and grapevine as perennial crops, and tomato as greenhouse crop. Field tests are carried out in ten European countries. Project scientists are testing several solutions including, for example, the phasing of sowing in response to pest emergence, the use of plant species resistant or tolerant to biological aggressors, and the release of predator insect species in greenhouses.

Alongside these existing methods, the project team also evaluates innovative technological solutions, such as air samplers that can warn the arrival of airborne inoculum of pathogens, or mating disruption for insects involving the release of pheromones.

Then, IPM models taking into account experimental results are designed in the lab, and tested back in the field, in a virtuous circle. “Combining IPM solutions is challenging as all problems do not arise at the same time in farms,” Lescourret tells youris.com.

Assessing the cost of these solutions before and after implementation is also a key point of the project. “A good [integrated pest management] solution results in a positive environmental impact, a good cost-versus-benefit ratio, and preserves the social well-being of agriculture professionals,” she tells youris.com.

Economic aspects are indeed crucial. “In order to execute IPM, many more economic thresholds for pest, disease, and weed infestation are needed. Economic thresholds are the levels of the pest that will cause economic loss if the pest is not controlled. Controlling the pest below this level is wasteful, costly and a totally unjustified use of pesticides. In order to assess if a pest is above this threshold, farmers needs more sampling methods to measure the pest level. PURE can add to their toolbox” says Richard Meadow, research scientist at Bioforsk, the Norwegian Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Research, in Ås, Norway.

However, a toolbox is not enough, for Hans Muilerman, pesticides & alternatives officer with PAN Europe, the European subsidiary of pesticide action network federating environmental NGOs. “The main thing farmers need is good examples. If the ‘hero’ of the region adopts IPM, many will follow. Governments should start ‘IPM-hero’ programs and stimulate it. A toolbox is only needed when farmers feel like changing and this is the big hurdle for now,” he tells youris.com.

By the time the project reaches completion, however, the European network ENDURE for the promotion of sustainable agriculture will take over and spread the results among agricultural advisers to maximise the chance that project findings will be implemented.

 

 

Read more: http://www.youris.com/Bioeconomy/Agriculture/A-Pest-Management-Toolbox-To-Reduce-Pesticide-Use.kl#ixzz2xbCEsEgw

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