International Pest Control – September/October 2024 – Vol 66, Nr.5

IPCadmin | October 14, 2024

COVER IMAGE: Adult and immature bed bugs.
Picture by Stephen Ausmus, USDA Agricultural Research Service

It doesn’t seem that long ago that the UN member states established the Sustainable Development Goals, although why they chose to number them and always present them in that order is beyond me. Next year will be the tenth anniversary of that event and no-doubt there will be a summit involving lots of people travelling on aircraft (see Goal 13) to some capital or other to celebrate the event. But the latest report on the status of SDG2 (Zero Hunger) launched in Brazil (more air travel no doubt) suggests we have gone backwards 15 years to the levels of undernourishment comparable to those in 2008-2009. Between 713 and 757 million people were undernourished in 2023.

At the same time 30% of food is estimated to be lost in storage and in this issue – as our Special Feature on Managing Storage Pests – we carry a report from the EU funded novIGRain project from the conference on the Integrated Protection of Stored Products. While it did sound like a fascinating conference with some very interesting science being reported it is a concern that only one novel active ingredient was presented to delegates at a time when all the old pesticides are either increasingly ineffective due to resistance or being withdrawn because of toxicity concerns. The high cost burden of regulation was seen by most delegates as a cause of this lack of innovation and there is a direct link between regulation stifling innovation and the future cost and availability of food – food that we have successfully grown and protected from pests from seed to harvest but which we cannot protect in storage.

Back to our news section and of interest to users of DCPA is that it has finally been banned in the USA – it was banned for use in Europe in 2009. It is hard to find out where in the world this chemical may still be used, but reading the EPAs findings suggests there is no safe way of using the product.

The bug of the issue is the American cockroach which loves a warm, damp environment – so it may be looking forward to an extended range thanks to climate change?

We carry reports from the FAOPMA Pest Summit, the Second International Conference on Biological Control and the Asian Pest Management Forum and we have information about PestWorld and the UK’s BCPC conference in November.

Aldef Global has a company profile in this issue, having grown from a small distribution operation in Poland to a multi-faceted production and packaging organisation serving clients worldwide.

Company news is the usual mix of new products (although often based on old active ingredients – see above), future plans, take-overs, partnerships and awards. We feature a range of companies including Bayer, Killgerm, Pelsis, Syngenta and Bionema.

In our Public Health section Stephen Doggett raises the concerning issue of human death associated with bed bug treatments, an issue which underlines the importance of using trained professional pest controllers.

In the greenhouse it seems innovation is moving apace and we report on a possible solution to “Tuta”, a defence against thrips, and improving resilience of tomatoes to climate change

In Forestry our own Terry Mabbett reviews alien plant species in the UK. I am sure a similar story could be written for many countries but in the UK some of our “invaders” go back hundreds of years, to the point where they have almost become accepted as indigenous! This section also looks at the control of papaya mealy bugs in Kenya and fruit flies in the USA.

Finally, we close with sections on climate change and animal health, which include an interview with the CEO of one of the world’s first carbon neutral pest control companies and the roll out of an unproven swine fever vaccine in the Philippines.

Our next issue will feature Technology in Pest Control. Contributions to this, or any of our regular sections are most welcome.

Chris Endacott, Editor International Pest Control magazine
editor@international-pest-control.com