Innovative Solutions to New Invaders: Managing Agricultural Pests, Diseases and Weeds Under Climate Change

Global agriculture is struggling to keep pace with increasing demands for food as human population increases and food preferences alter. Changes in temperature, greenhouse gas concentrations, precipitation patterns and radiation further challenge farmers. Insect and nematode pests, plant diseases and weeds are major constraints to crop production. Developing models to project the potential distribution and abundance of a pest species under various climate change scenarios is essential, and the Australian scientific community has been at the forefront with the development of CLIMEX and its application to modelling some of the world’s worst weed species, such as the pantropical Asteraceae, Chromolaena odorata. CABI is developing tools to assist farmers in coping with these challenges. In West Africa, C. odorata promotes other crop pests, such as the polyphagous Zonocerus variegatus grasshopper. CABI has developed an efficacious mycopesticide, a formulation of Metarhizium anisopliae var. acridum, to prevent threats from increasing grasshopper and locust populations. Climate change models project increased precipitation in parts of the humid tropics. In Central Africa, this will exacerbate yield losses, such as to fungal ‘blackpod’ disease on cocoa. Farmers currently use contact fungicides, but this strategy will become less efficacious with increasing rainfall. CABI and partners are identifying endophytes, such as Trichoderma, as biocontrol agents to deal with this threat.