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While the ideal of integrated pest management has been pursued and adopted in a variety of settings since the mid-20th century, recent trends point to perhaps too great a focus on killing pests rather than managing host stress. In a new paper in American Entomologist, three experts suggest a modified focus that better accounts for evolution and tolerance to pest injury and shifts from control toward management.

By Robert K.D. Peterson

Whatever happened to integrated pest management? If you’re a regular reader of Entomology Today, you might think “Why, I didn’t know anything had happened to it.” So, why is anyone even asking this question?

It’s true that integrated pest management (IPM) is a term well known. It is used liberally by scientists and other practitioners without the need for definition, and it is a major success story for society. But it can also be argued that IPM has, in fact, lost its way.

There has been little formal discussion of IPM theory and its status over at least the past 10 years, even though in that time we have seen both the overwhelmingly successful adoption of prophylactic pest control tactics in the form of transgenic crops and seed treatments and the increasing application of evolutionary biology in environmental and public health management.

Bridges the Gap Between Supplier and Grower What is your personal back ground? I am an agronomist and marketer with diverse experience in the agriculture

Flowers are the perfect gift for someone close to the heart but geographically distant, i.e. theoretically an ideal e-commerce market.

However, they are also a delicate and perishable commodity, typically requiring hydration during transportation and lasting only four or five days in conventional packaging.

Flexible packaging specialist Uflex gained much attention with the recent release of its Flexfresh solution, which promises waterless transportation with significantly extended product life. Siva Shankaran (VP, Flexfresh) discusses the contexts .

“Internationally, all flowers are transported using expensive air freight from growing region to the markets,” observes Mr Shankaran. “The typical supply chain is grower – auction house – wholesaler – retailer / florist – and finally the consumer. Thanks to e-commerce platforms it’s now possible to connect the growers directly to the consumers. Our concept was to to ship flowers in post parcels without any water. This eliminated the possibility of cross contamination with other courier goods.”

“ADAMA is a part of the second green revolution in Kenya,” says Mr Ido Rahat Product Strategy Manager. The world leader in crop protection solutions, founded over 70 years ago with roots in Israel has partnered with Amiran Kenya Ltd in Kenya and has successfully improved the lives of many farmers with its innovative, farmer-centric products.

What sets ADAMA apart?
Mr Ido Rahat Product Strategy Manager says “ADAMA is the unique and successful partnership of Kenya and Israel. We bring the superior agriculture technology of Israel and adapt it to the Kenyan market using local expertise. Our goal is to help farmers with modern technologies that enable them to reap the most benefits from their fields and crops. All our products are created by first identifying the farmer need, finding a solution for it using the R&D expertise, and finally delivering a product that is tailor-made for the local market.”

Launch of Bigo
Mr Ido Rahat said this while addressing flower growers in Naivasha during the launch of Bigo, one product with two modes of action on both downy mildew and botrytis. Mr. Ido said Bigo is a combination of two different molecules Fluazinam and Dimethomorph which have translaminar and contact activity against Downy Mildew and Botrytis. Combining these two molecules with two different modes of action enables Bigo to target two diseases at once. Thus, the uniqueness of Bigo is that addition to its high efficacy on Downy mildew, it is a good choice to control Botrytis as it kills any botrytis spores o the rose stems or heads simultaneously

Delays at Port Spark Fears of Price Increase and Fertiliser Shortage

The government has directed that fertiliser imports be expeditiously inspected at the port of Mombasa to alleviate shortage that has seen an increase in prices of the crucial farm input.

Public Service Deputy Head and Multi- Agency Taskforce on Enforcement of Standards Chairman Wanyama Musiambo, said every tested consignment that meets Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) requirements be released forthwith. Mr. Musiambo also directed the Kenya Flower Council (KFC) to immediately inform his office of any unnecessary delays to facilitate decisive action against officials frustrating the government’s efforts to rid Kenya of counterfeit and substandard goods.

In an interview, KFC chief executive Mr. Clement Tulezi decried continued delay in releasing approved consignments that were incurring hefty storage charges. “We are the third highest foreign earner after tea and tourism as well as employs the highest number of Kenyans at over 300,000. Denying us access to imported fertiliser is akin to stifling our continued growth,” he said.

On October 19, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued two draft guidance documents to help farmers and fresh-cut produce processors better understand what they need to do to meet requirements established by the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).

The first draft guidance is a compliance and implementation guide to assist growers with meeting the requirements of the Produce Safety Rule under FSMA. To further assist farmers and other stakeholders, FDA has also published At-A-Glance overviews that highlight the key points in each chapter in the draft guidance.

The second draft guidance issued today, Guide to Minimize Food Safety Hazards of Fresh-cut Produce, explains the FDA’s current thinking on how fresh-cut produce processors, such as those that prepare bagged salad mixes and fruit salad, may comply with the requirements found in the Preventive Controls for Human Food Rule under FSMA.