By Gary Hartley

EU sustainable pest management guidance issued, amidst definition dispute

The European Union has further underlined its ambitions to reduce the use of synthetic chemicals in crop protection, with the launch of an integrated pest management (IPM) best practice database.

However, its choice of terminology around biological pest control, underpinning a wider pesticide reduction strategy, has come under fire from leading academics.

The database includes around 1,300 examples of proven IPM approaches, across eight principles, as well as ‘crop specific guidelines’ based on recommendations from member states.

The online toolbox includes methods such as crop rotation and monitoring, but has a strong focus on non-chemical pest management options such as the application of biological control.

Clearer definition needed?

Exactly what should be covered under the term ‘biological control’ is the focus of an editorial in the journal Trends in Plant Science from a group of experts led by Johan Stenberg of the Swedish University of Agricultural Science.

The scientists argue that “political deafness” at European level around the definition of the term has the potential to derail progress in bringing sustainable techniques into the mainstream of food production across the continent.

Proposed regulation on sustainable pest control products includes both living and non-living, but nature-derived, products in its definition. The latter group include products such as insect pheromones, botanical extracts and growth inhibitors.

But this, wrote Stenberg and colleagues, is not the definition widely accepted by the scientific community, which includes only living agents such as invertebrates, fungi, bacteria or viruses.

Failure to adopt this stricter definition will lead to confusion between academia, industry and politics, cause regulatory confusion and lead to problems in applying pest control measures, they said.

Confusion could hit efficacy assessments

“Lumping living agents with non-living substances (although of biological origin) in the definition of biological control in the new regulation for sustainable use of plant protection products is not only a matter of terminology,” they stressed.

“We fear that it can lead to big confusion regarding how to optimise evaluations of new agents and substances based on their unique properties.”

They suggest the differentiation of biological control agents from ‘nature-based substances’, which can both all under the broader umbrella of ‘bioprotection’. 

“We firmly believe that this will facilitate the implementation of bioprotection agents,  biological or nature-based, for effective and sustainable future plant protection strategies,” they added.

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