All the news

• Shifting to pesticide-free agriculture
  

  In preparation for the European Commission’s €100 billion Horizon Europe research and innovation framework programme, set to be launched in 2021, European institutes have come together with the ambitious target of moving towards chemical pesticide-free agriculture in Europe.

• New project targets sustainable agri systems
  

  A new European project has been launched to ‘develop and support ecologically, economically and socially sustainable crop production via stacking and protection of functional biodiversity’. Called EcoStack, the five-year Horizon 2020 project brings together 24 partners, including a handful of ENDURE partners who are leading three of the work packages.

• Potato app proves to be a hit
  

  The James Hutton Institute, ENDURE’s Scottish partner, has introduced a web-based version of its Buntata application. The application, originally only a free Android app, makes it possible to identify potato pests and diseases in the field.

• COLUMA 2019: Focus on weed control
  

  Végéphyl, France’s association for plant health formerly known as AFPP, has issued a call for communications for 2019’s COLUMA conference, an event held once every three years focusing on weed management.

• IBMA calls for regulatory shake-up
  

  The International Biocontrol Manufacturers Association (IBMA) has called on the European Union to establish a new regulatory organisation focused specifically on biocontrol in order to simplify and accelerate evaluations and approvals and thereby provide farmers with a greater range of options.

• Updated events calendar
  

  With locations as far flung as Canada, Japan and Malaysia (and, of course, Europe) and topics including agroecology, precision agriculture and biocontrol, our updated events calendar allows you to get ahead with planning your attendance at conferences and other events in 2019.

• New ID for AFPP and conference details
  

  AFPP, the French association for plant protection, has a new identity just ahead of this year’s 12th International Conference on Plant Diseases. From now, AFPP will be known as Végéphyl - Association pour la santé des végétaux (association for plant health).

• UPDATED! Links to other projects and organisations
  

  In the table below you can find a selection of European projects which you may find interesting. While the majority of these projects are not 'ENDURE-endorsed', we hope that by bringing together more than 50 European projects in one easy to use table we are helping the international Integrated Pest Management community to gain an insight into European agricultural research.

• Diversification cluster to boost impact
  

  Six of the European Commission’s H2020 projects have joined forces in a ‘crop diversification cluster’ which will involve sharing strategies and tools with the aim of boosting the impact of their research into various ways of improving the economic and environmental sustainability of European agriculture.

• INRA seeks scientific officer for DiverIMPACTS
  

  INRA’s Eco-Innov unit, based near Paris, France, is seeking a scientific officer to work on the Horizon 2020 DiverIMPACTS project (Diversification through rotation, intercropping, multiple cropping, promoted with actors and value-chains towards sustainability). The three-year position will run from 1 November, 2018.