APPPC/FAO Workshop on IPM held in Beijing

An APPPC (Asia-Pacific Plant Protection Commission)/FAO workshop on IPM (integrated pest management) development was held in Beijing from May 19th to 22nd, 2015. The Workshop aimed to share experience, enhance IPM capacity, popularize FAO's "Save and Grow" concept, and promote sustainable growth of agricultural production and farmers' income and eco-environment safety. Participants to the Workshop included representatives of 13 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, and officials from FAO, Department of Crop Production of MOA and National Agro-Technical Extension and Service Center.

The Chinese government has always attached great importance to the prevention and control of crop diseases and pests, and taken a series of effective measures as follows: first, China has vigorously promoted the development of crop disease and pest prevention and control system; second, China has intensified efforts in coordinated and expertise-based pest control; third, the competent authorities have taken green approaches in disease and pest control; and fourth, they have promoted information application in plant protection. Due to timely and accurate monitoring and early warning, as well as science-based and effective measures, China has gained remarkable achievements in plant disaster prevention and reduction. The annual grain loss has dropped by 90 billion kilograms on average, contributing a lot to China's grain output growth for the11th consecutive year.

The participants introduced the progress and experience of IPM (integrated pest management) drives in respective countries, and exchanged views on typical cases of biological control (trichogramma against sugarcane borers), ecological control (rice-duck farming system for rice disease and pest control), and farmer's education (farmer field schools on IPM). They also visited model enterprises and production bases achieving effective IPM and agro-product safety, through government and business cooperation, as well as plant protection authority and farmer's cooperative collaboration. Besides, the participants also discussed the opportunities and challenges facing IPM technologies and farmer field schools.

The participants agreed that the workshop is an in-depth communication on the sustainability, institutionalization and effectiveness of IPM projects. They had pragmatic discussions on establishing and improving supportive policy systems, and promoting IPM development and application under the framework of FAO's "Save and Grow" policy.