CABI News

A senior delegation of officials from CABI have paid a visit to Colombia – an important and valued Member Country – to strengthen engagement with national partners and enhance work towards improved livelihoods and greater food security.

Dr Qiaoqiao Zhang, Director, Memberships and Dr Yelitza Colmenarez, Centre Director, Brazil, chiefly met with senior counterparts from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to update them on the progress in the implementation of CABI’s Medium-Term Strategy 2023-2025.

This was in respect of work in partnership with CABI Member Countries and national partners and highlighted current collaboration and ways to further strengthen strategic partnerships between Colombia and CABI moving forward.

The work includes a range of impactful research and capacity-building projects jointly implemented by CABI and Colombian partners, as well as exploring opportunities to deepen collaboration between the relevant parties.

For example, CABI has been working in partnership to help Colombia’s coffee farmers fight the devastating Coffee Berry Borer (CBB) (Hypothenemus hampei) pest with an early warning system that harnesses climatic data and remote sensing technology.

Dr Zhang and Dr Colmenarez also discussed Colombia’s roles in CABI’s governance and its uptake of Membership Benefits.

Meeting national and regional priorities

CABI also met with representatives from the National Plant Protection Office (NPPO) Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario (ICA), AGROSAVIA, a leading Colombian national agricultural research institution – and CENICAFE as well as other partners.

At all these meetings, CABI team updated the representatives from these partner organisations – including Colombia NPPO-Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario (ICA) – on CABI’s focus areas.

This included its expertise on major international development programmes, publishing products and knowledge tools.

They also reviewed CABI Membership Benefits including input into CABI’s research activities, delivery of research, development and communication programmes meeting national and regional priorities, as well as making full use of CABI’s expertise, products, tools and services.

Potential areas of collaboration addressing the needs of Colombia’s agricultural and other related sectors were also discussed.

Dr Zhang said, “Colombia has been an important and valued Member Country since 1995 and this has resulted in many mutually beneficial associations through collaboration on projects, capacity building, knowledge management and information access.

“We look forward to building upon existing fruitful associations – such as that with Cenicafé – as well as others which place sustainable agricultural practices at the heart of biodiversity conservation, increased livelihoods and food security efforts.”

Tackling a range of crop pests and diseases

Dr Colmenarez said this work may include further efforts to adopt Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approaches to tackling a range of crop pests and diseases such as the fall armyworm which can cause losses of maize crops up to 60 percent in Colombia.

Meanwhile, diseases such as Tropical race 4 (TR4) – the strain of the fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (Foc) that causes Fusarium wilt (Panama disease) in Cavendish banana cultivars – is a threat to Colombia’s banana crops.

CABI last worked in partnership on the biocontrol of fall armyworm in Colombia in 2019 and on a management package for Fusarium wilt in the country in 2021.

Range of Membership Benefits

Dr Colmenarez said part of Colombia’s Member Country Benefits include access to the CABI BioProtection Portal, which was launched in Colombia in 2020, that helps growers and agricultural advisors to identify, source and correctly apply biocontrol and biopesticide products against problematic pests in their crops.

The CABI BioProtection Portal is a public-private initiative working in collaboration with Colombia NPPO-Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario (ICA), and further efforts will be putting in place to reinforce the communication and collaboration with ICA to have a more frequent update of the Colombia´s information on the platform.

Dr Zhang said, “We are committed to continuing the delivery of Membership Benefits to Colombia to deepen our collaboration and that includes tools such as the CABI BioProtection Portal as well as the CABI Crop Protection Compendium and the Pest Risk Analysis Tool.

“Other benefits include free access to a wide range of publishing products, free microbial identification services, free project development and policy advice support and facilitation of close partnerships among CABI Member Countries through north-south and south-south co-operation.”

Past and recent activities in Colombia

Past and recent activities in Colombia in the early 2000s included a three-year project funded by UK Defra and in partnership with Cenicafé which helped to formulate the most likely ways to add sustainable value to coffee and other products.

CABI also engaged in a two-year project between 2018 and 2020 – funded by Prosperity Fund Colombia’s Agri-Tech Catalyst Challenge Project and administered by Innovate UK – to establish a Coffee Berry Borer (CBB) early warning systema and incentivizing the use of biopesticides as a sustainable control method.

CABI was also involved in the Colombian Cocoa Control and monitoring system (COLCO) – funded by the Newton Fund – which was set up in 2018 to increase the volume and quality of cacao produced in Colombia, by means of increased monitoring and traceability throughout the cacao value chain.

 

Additional information

Main image: Dr Colmenarez (third from left) and Dr Zhang (fourth from right) with colleagues from Colombia’s Ministries of Agriculture and Foreign Affairs.

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