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A food secure world requires investing in farmers and supporting innovators to ensure “the right to foods for a better life and a better future.” We can start by rewarding farmers for working with nature-friendly solutions, such as biocontrol, and alleviating bureaucratic burdens on biocontrol innovators.
Pests and diseases pose a major threat to food production, jeopardising food security and livelihoods. Working with nature, biocontrol technologies are tried and tested solutions that effectively deal with pests and disease ensuring farmers are productive and profitable. The theme on World Food Day, 16 October 2024 is “right to foods for a better life and a better future.’’ We can help achieve this by financially supporting European farmers in the transition to resilient agriculture and fast-tracking biocontrol authorisation processes to ensure we keep biocontrol innovators in Europe.
Time to reward farmers working with Nature
In her political guidelines for the European Commission 2024-2029, Ursula von der Leyen emphasized, “farming is a core part of European life – and it must always stay that way”. She sees Europe’s agri-food sector as a strategic asset vital for global food security and believes policies should “reward farmers working with nature, preserving our biodiversity and natural ecosystems”.
Working with nature, biocontrol solutions specifically target the pest, do not harm the crop, work against pest resistance and leave no residue. By rewarding farmers for using nature-friendly solutions such as biocontrol, we can help ensure farming within planetary boundaries is productive and profitable.
“We must speed up approval processes to get essential biocontrol solutions to farmers faster,” says Jennifer Lewis, Executive Director, IBMA. “Europe cannot afford to lose the innovations that will protect our food supply and secure the future of farming.”
Europe needs to fast – track biocontrol
In Europe, there are over 100 substances in the biocontrol pipeline due to be submitted for approval by 2028 that can provide effective pest and disease control on over 28 million hectares of which 23 million are arable crops.
However, it may take up to a decade for these innovations to make into the farmers’ toolbox – a process that takes about 3 years in other regions. Bad news for European food security that also puts farmers at a competitive disadvantage and can mean biocontrol companies take their investment elsewhere.
Biocontrol for a better life and a better future
We need a European wide biocontrol definition that enables us to:
- Speed up authorization processes for biocontrol
- Focus on short term measures for improved implementation of and targeted changes to 1107
- Work on a new regulatory framework
Green investments are set to play a major role in Europe, and Von der Leyen intends to unveil a Clean Industrial Deal in the first 100 days of her mandate. This will include investment in clean energy infrastructure and technologies, along with simplification measures for business. A good opportunity for biocontrol. By reducing bureaucratic barriers and supporting biocontrol adoption, we can strengthen global food production, promote sustainability, and secure livelihoods across Europe and around the world.