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SLU Centre for Biological Control's annual report 2021

Published: 14 February 2022
A cover for a folder with a yellow rapeseed flower and insects.

SLU Centre for Biological Control, CBC, has now published the annual popular science overview of the activities during 2021. Besides research and innovation, there was a marked increase in CBC’s collaboration with Swedish public agencies and other stakeholders.

During the year, the SLU Centre for Biological Control published a number of scientific advances related to the biological control of, for example, pest insects, fungal diseases, and nematodes.

Besides research and innovation, in the past year there was a marked increase in CBC’s collaboration with Swedish public agencies and other stakeholders. For example, we started two formal hands-on projects with the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency to assist safety assessment of new biocontrol agents, and review the potential to combat invasive species using, for example, biocontrol methods.

– The need for biocontrol is ever increasing, and we look forward to intensifying our research efforts in 2022 and thereby helping efforts to reach the European Commission ‘Farm to Fork strategy’ to reduce use of chemical pesticides by 50% by 2030, says director Johan Stenberg.

Facts:

Biological control is a method of restricting effects of harmful animals, pathogens and plants using other useful organisms, e.g. microorganisms, insects and plants that inhibit the harmful organisms. The method takes advantage of basic ecological interactions between organisms, such as predation, parasitism, pathogenicity and competition. Today, biological control is used primarily for controlling pests in crop cultivation.

SLU Centre for Biological Control (CBC) aims to develop new knowledge concerning the use of living organisms to control pests and diseases.


Contact

Johan Stenberg

Portrait photo of a man outdoors.

Professor at the Department of Plant Protection Biology
johan.stenberg@slu.se
Telephone: 040-41 53 78, 070-6220042
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