The healthy attendance is a sign of the increasing importance of biocontrol, say the organisers. Jennifer Lewis, executive director of the International Biocontrol Manufacturers Association, one of the event organisers, told  the ABIM website: “Biocontrol is essential in the transition of agriculture. These nature-based alternatives to chemical pesticides improve biodiversity, soil quality, crop health and resilience contributing to sustainable food production.”

Lucius Tamm, managing director of ABIM AG and leader of the department of crop sciences at FiBL Switzerland, stressed the importance of biocontrol to sustainable agriculture. He told the ABIM website: “Agricultural systems and processes must become more sustainable in the future. Biocontrol delivers crucial solutions and can shape this transformation process to sustainable agriculture successfully. This is why this annual meeting for the biocontrol industry is so important - for the industry itself and for the whole of society.”

The ABIM 2022 programme included presentations from the European Commission on the latest policy positions on the new Sustainable Use Regulation and the relevant changes to the biocontrol registration requirements. The new policies, reports the ABIM website, are designed to reduce the dependence on chemical pesticides and facilitate authorisation and uptake of non-chemical solutions.

A feature of the annual meetings is the presentation of the Bernard Blum Award to the most innovative biocontrol product of the year. Since 2015, an independent jury selects from a number of entries “a winning biocontrol product which provides an effective solution in the management of pests or diseases while having a low impact on human health and the environment”.

This year’s winning entry in the Bernard Blum Award for Novel Biocontrol Solutions was Pronemite from Biobest. Biobest explains that Probemite (Pronematus ubiquitus ) is “a new category of commercial arthropod biocontrol agent that concurrently targets a key pest, russet mite, and a problem fungal disease, powdery mildew”.

Biobest R&D director Felix Wackers told the company’s website: “Pronemite is a genuine breakthrough. Pronemite is representative of a new family of beneficial mites; it’s the first effective biocontrol solution for russet mite control; the first commercialised fungal disease control using a mite; and uniquely the first commercialised biological control organism shown to simultaneously control a key pest and a problem pathogen in a protected crop. As such, it represents a whole new category of biocontrol.”

Second place went to Andermatt Biocontrol for Plutex, which the company desribes as a new highly selective baculovirus to control diamondback moths. In third place was Agrobio’s Oricontrol Plus, which uses Orius laevigatus predatory bugs to control thrips.

The winner of a new category, Best Innovative Product Assisting Biocontrol Uptake, was CBC Europe’s Shindo Trap, which combines classis pheromone attraction with innovative vibrational attraction for capturing stink bugs.

For more information:

• Read more about ABIM 2022 here
• See the Bernard Blum Award photos here