Science Seminar: Managing pests and dis...

Welcome to all our online viewers. You are welcome to post questions and comments directly here

Is there a preferred hashtag?

Hi Jeremy we haven't got a twitter hashtag. can you suggest one?

#CCAFSP&D?

sounds good.

Has any work been done on urban agriculture. Some people suggest that urban agriculture as one of the options to build resilience

Hi Bowdin. Indeed urban agriculture could help build resilience to climate change in some contexts. What is the link between urban agriculture and climate change?

urban agriculture, climate change and pests & diseases (i meant)

Given that pests and diseases cause such massive impacts globally TODAY, it is amazing that the models are so far behind the crop models. But great to see that there is a vision to create a modelling platform.

I'm curious to know why the pest and disease science community didn't do this years ago though

What troubles me most is that farmers often lack the knowledge to successfully control their pests without causing a lot envirnomental harm.

The crop mixes for urban agriculture are different from those in “conventional” farming systems. So we will be dealing with a different spectrum of pests. So the models being currently discussed might not be appropriate.

Swen: many farmers do use diversity to manage pest and disease risk.

What I mean is that chemical control of pest and diseases us overdone, leading to damage

the companies producing the product might have shown their described dosis does not harm, but these guidelines are not always followed

Especially in a tropical context, it is often shown that when people use chemicals, they use them wrongly

Swen: I understand that, which is why it is important to offer farmers other options.

I'm totally in favour of more agro-ecological approaches, like the diversity you mention

Unfortunately, it is easy to open a bottle and spray it on the crop than to implement a more "ecological" solution. But they have made big progress in integrated pest management, so the knowledge is there.

My point was an argument not to focus too much on chemical control, but more on ecological ;)

Swen, Andy: I think that's where this is going.

I sure hope so, unfortunately i forgot my earphones, relying on de slides only... :-(

Perhaps a related question, which Karen seems to be looking at, is how can we even know which pest management systems to use, given that climate change is likely to alter the conditions where pest thrive?

The link to climate change is that many cities anticipate that in a climate change scenario water will be reused. Stormwater will be harvested for domestic use and also for food production.

If the pests thrive, it is to hope their preditors thrive as well in the changed climate

good point, Swen.

Complexity is nut of the problem in pests and diseases and is probably the reason why these "generic" models do not exist. In crops, you have fairly universal rules in physiology, but that seeming is not the case in this field, though i would love to be

contradicted

Also the reason why urban agriculture will be very hard to model. The diversity of one allotment plot is simply too high to validate the models properly

Although knowledge on pest and disease control amongst allotment food growers is quite high I think

hello

Welcome, Gustaf

Can hear (very low). Please check volume as it is very low.

hhello

Audio fine here.

hi Beatriz. have you put the volume to maximum? On the bottom right of the video screen is the volume bar.

I personally think the problem lies with how we grow crops, in monocultures, both spatial as genetically. Rotations can only do so much

At the very beginning I could hear perfectly OK. Then it was obvious that there was a lower volume coming from your end. I have it at max vol.

that is certainly an issue in developed country agriculture, Swen, but in the tropics the nature of the landscapes often means that there is only limited monocropping

but the pests and disease problems remain

True, the tropics, you see a far more diverse landscape

I also experienced a reduction in volume in the middle of the transmission

But staple food crops are quite often also planted in monocultures

the fields might be smaller, but the area's covered by one crop are quite big

Beatriz: please try using the low bandwidth stream: http://bambuser.com/v/2565034

let us know if the volume is better.

whether it is maize, sorghum or banana/plantain

Is that a sage grouse?

yes the volume is better now. Thanks

So we have seen that it is complex! 9 very different factors that need to be taken into acount. Is this complexity so overwhelming that we cannot possibly model it?