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SLU Platform Plant Protection (since 2021 www.slu.se/plantprotectionnetwork)
PO Box 7043, SE-750 07 Uppsala
Phone: +46 018 67 21 96
Email: Katja.Fedrowitz@slu.se
SLU news
The International Year of Plant Health 2020 officially started
Published: 04 December 2019
Yesterday we kicked-off the International Year of Plant Health 2020 (IYPH 2020) here at SLU. This was the first event of many to come in order to raise global awareness on how protecting plant health can help end hunger, reduce poverty, protect the environment, and boost economic development.
The official opening of IYPH2020 was held in Rome and SLU's correspondent, Jan Stenlid, Professor in forest pathology, attended the meeting and participated in the kick-off at SLU via video link. At SLU, Ylva Hillbur, SLU’s Pro Vice-Chancellor for international relations said some opening words together with researchers from SLU that were located both in Ultuna and Alnarp.
-At SLU, over 200 researchers are working with questions related to plant protection and plant health, so it is relevant for us to show how we contribute with our research for better plant health, said Ylva Hillbur.
- We need healthy plants to produce food, bioenergy, new products etcetera. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that up to 40 percent of food crops are lost to plant pests and diseases annually. This leaves millions of people without enough food to eat and seriously damages agriculture - the primary source of income for rural poor communities, stated Riccardo Bommarco, Chair of SLU Platform Plant Protection.
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From left: Katja Fedrowitz (coordinator for SLU Platform Plant Protection), Ylva Hillbur (SLU’s Pro Vice-Chancellor for international relations), Riccardo Bommarco (Chair of SLU Platform Plant Protection) and Anna Berlin (researcher at the Department of Forest Mycology and Plant Pathology).
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Swedish saffron buns and gingerbread cookies were served at the kick-off.
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Jan Stenlid, Professor in Forest Pathology, attended the IYPH2020 meeting in Rome and participated at SLU via video link.
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Erland Liljeroth, Professor in plant protection in Alnarp gave some concrete examples on why plant health is important in Sweden.
- The general public needs to be more aware of plant health and the challenges in food production. To minimize losses in agriculture pesticides are used to a large extent and that is often but not always successful. For environmental and human health reasons we want to reduce the dependence of pesticides. The problem with antibiotic resistance is discussed a lot in media in relation to human health. Less discussed is that there is a similar problem with development of pesticide resistance. Chemicals that earlier could control pathogens or weeds does not work anymore because the targets have become insensitive, said Erland via video link from Alnarp.
SLU Platform Plant Protection has gathered several centres and platforms at SLU to work together during the International Year of Plant Health.
- We want to rise public awareness for the importance of plant health – in Sweden and globally. To achieve this, our activities include articles and reports on our research in the media, as well as the presence of researchers at different national and international events throughout the year. We are also planning a citizen science project, said Anna Berlin, Researcher at the Department of Forest Mycology and Plant Pathology.
Photos: Malin Planting