China cooperates with Belt and Road partner countries on transboundary pest control

KUNMING -- China has initiated cooperation with countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative in combating major transboundary crop pests and diseases such as the fall armyworm (FAW), sharing its experience, technologies and products with countries in Southeast Asia and Africa to enhance their ability to respond to major biosafety threats and establish defense barriers against them.

A field demonstration meeting was held Monday and Tuesday by the Institute of Plant Protection, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) in Jiangcheng county, Pu'er City in southwest China's Yunnan Province, to showcase the progress of major crop pest and disease prevention and control technology in the border regions between China, Vietnam, and Laos.

Yang Zhenhai, Party chief of the CAAS, said that the academy will promote the application of new green pest and disease control technologies in Belt and Road partner countries, and enhance technological innovation in preventing and controlling transboundary pests and diseases.

Xia Jingyuan, the special advisor to the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), said that crop pests and diseases are major biological disasters with a significant impact on global food security, causing 40 percent loss in crop yield every year, equivalent to approximately 220 billion U.S. dollars.

FAW, originating from the Americas, has rapidly spread and proliferated across the entire African and Asian continents, as well as the South Pacific island nations, within just five years since its first reported invasion in Nigeria in 2016, posing a severe threat to global food security, Xia said.

The Institute of Plant Protection of the CAAS has cooperated with top plant protection research institutions in China to combat invasive FAW. Significant achievements have been made in early warning, monitoring, forecasting, and comprehensive control of the pests. The institute has also supported the FAO Global Action on FAW control and implemented the FAO-China South-South cooperation project in Africa and Southeast Asia. The successful experience of China has been widely promoted in relevant countries, yielding good results and receiving high praise from those countries, Xia mentioned.

Chinese scientists discovered the initial invasion of FAW in China in December 2018. They have identified seasonal migration patterns of the pest in the border regions between China and Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. Utilizing information technology and computer vision technology, scientists developed systems for automatic identification, dynamic monitoring, and precise early warning of the pests, according to institute.

Through effective management, the annual average occurrence area of FAW in China has been reduced by about 5.33 million hectares compared to expectation, avoiding an annual loss of 5 billion to 6 billion kg in corn production, the institute said. The FAO has recommended the Chinese experience and practices for managing FAW globally, contributing a Chinese solution to the sustainable management of FAW worldwide.