Climate change is a major obstacle to Europe's ambition to reduce the use of synthetic pesticides. These limits have been particularly highlighted in European roadmaps such as the Green Deal. Climate change affects to varying degrees the interactions between cultivated plants and other organisms such as agricultural pests and their natural enemies that provide biological control. It also affects the effectiveness of green and natural products used for pest control purposes. It is therefore necessary to consider the effects of global changes on the way we approach integrated crop protection in Europe. The effectiveness of currently available solutions and the implementation of new approaches based on ecosystems and natural products against pests of different crops could be affected by these changes. As a result, there is a strong expectation on the part of the agricultural sector as a whole, and throughout the study area concerned, to be able to identify with as much precision as possible bioinsecticide solutions that are innovative, effective, sustainable and resilient to environmental change.
The France-Wallonia-Vlaanderen cross-border area is a production basin mainly based on field crops (cereals, oilseeds and protein crops, sugar beet and potatoes), market gardening (leek, onion, strawberries and other crops) and orchards (apple and pear trees). As a result, both the problems faced by growers, and more generally by the stakeholders from the agricultural sectors involved, and the bioinsecticide solutions developed are similar in the different regions. These solutions are based on the use of pathogens (e.g. entomopathogenic fungi), predatory auxiliary organisms (e.g. lacewings, mites, bugs) and parasitoids (e.g. Encarsia and Aphidius micro wasps) of agricultural pests common to the region concerned, as well as the use of essential plant oils, semiochemicals, bacterial lipopeptides and various natural bioinsecticides. Pests common to the region include defoliators affecting plant growth and crop yield (e.g. Colorado beetles), sucking-biting arthropods causing tissue damage and transmitting viruses (e.g. aphids, psyllids, whiteflies, thrips, mites) or those attacking fruits or roots (e.g. wireworms, leafminers).
To address these issues, the Trans-Pest project, part of the Biocontrol 4.0 project portfolio, will initially aim to gain a better understanding of the effect of environmental variations, and consequently climate change, on the effectiveness of existing bioinsecticide solutions. This challenge will be tackled mainly in the laboratory and in semi-controlled environments by adopting a multidisciplinary approach to the crops and pests targeted in the portfolio. In particular, environmental changes are leading to modifications in the relationships between plants and insects, which is creating new challenges for the control of arthropod pests. Secondly, the project will focus on improving bioinsecticide solutions or their use to meet the challenges posed by different climate change scenarios in the regions and on the crops covered by the project. It is essential to adapt the protocols proposed to farmers in an intelligent way, and to improve the resistance of biocontrol products in the face of increasing climatic hazards.
The combination of these two work modules will lead to a better understanding of the challenges posed by climate change to crop protection through the use of bioinsecticides. They will lead to the production of qualitative and quantitative analyses, both in the laboratory and in the field, which will be used to inform farmers and the general public about these issues, and to suggest ways of improving the fight against agricultural pests.
Several cross-border operators, including companies, research structures and agricultural technical structures, will work together on common crops and pests, while contributing their own expertise on certain bioinsecticide solutions, creating synergies and fertile ground for future projects.