ENDURE was recently invited by the European Commission (EC) to take part in a workshop exploring opportunities for twinning in soil, plant and food research in the Argentinean city of Buenos Aires, alongside representatives of the EC and Mercosur, the Southern American Common Market that brings together countries such as Argentina Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.
ENDURE, represented by Alex Percy-Smith (pictured right) from Aarhus University in Denmark, was one of seven European Commission- funded projects at the two-day event, alongside eight projects funded by Argentinean agencies.
Of the latter there were three projects particularly relevant to ENDURE. These included Argentina’s National Agricultural Technology Institute’s integrated pest management project (INTA-IPM), VALORAM, an EU collaborative project examining crop protection in potato, and BIOSPAS, an Argentinean Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation Strategic Area Project working on soil biology.
A number of ways were identified to foster the development of collaborations between European and Argentinean scientists working in crop protection. This includes encouraging scientists to contact each other on specific crop protection issues, communicating about events in Europe and Argentina, including invitations to conferences and workshops, and providing Argentinean scientists with a central point of contact (Alex Percy-Smith). In addition, the possibilities of including Argentinean scientists in new IPM proposals to the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme and other funding possibilities will be considered.
Argentinean scientists are also very keen to visit European laboratories to discuss projects, protocols, new ideas and identify training programmes.
Argentinean scientists will now be invited to ENDURE’s Annual Meeting, which is being held in Wageningen, The Netherlands, this October where a scientific session is planned for both Argentinean and ENDURE scientists to present their work.
“The workshop was conducted in a very positive way with enthusiastic participation by all,” noted Alex Percy-Smith. “Conclusions were optimistic and there is no doubt that there is a general interest and willingness to develop collaboration.
“Research within the area of IPM in Argentina is rather fragmented. Through collaboration with European partners from ENDURE it is likely that pest management in Argentina can become more integrated and IPM strategies developed.”
For more details about this story, contact Alex Percy-Smith.
Last update: 24/05/2023 - ENDURE © 2009 - Contact ENDURE - Disclaimer