Almeria’s Green Pest Management Revolution: An Opportunity That Arose from a Food Safety Alert

Abstract

Almería, a province of Spain, is the leader in horticultural production on a Spanish and European scale. The specific conditions of greenhouse cultivation favor plant development, but also the proliferation of pests. This high incidence of pests was controlled in the past mainly by means of chemical phytosanitary treatments. The aim of the present work has been to analyze the tools facilitated by the Andalusian Government (Junta de Andalucía) to replace the usual pest management process, taking advantage of the context of the food safety alert arising from the detection of isophenphos-methyl in peppers from the province of Almeria in December 2007. The results illustrate that, unlike many programs of public subsidies which involve long-term expenditure, the aid in question took advantage of the socioeconomic situation following the food safety alert. The program led to substantial economic savings and met its objectives swiftly, achieving excellent results in terms of removing most of the pesticides used in the “conventional production system”. In the 2006–2007 season, only 515 hectares in Almería used biological control organisms, four years later, it reached 20,081 hectares, and the average area during the last ten years was 24,953 hectares. This shows that Almeria’s green pest management revolution had been consolidated.

On testing the effectiveness of soil microbial inoculants in integrated pest management for commercial tomato production

“…One point of caution would be if the microbes, by modifying plant defenses, may negatively impact auxiliary fauna, as for example biocontrol insects. As this study was performed under common pest management practices in Spanish tomato production based on IPM (Acebedo et al, 2022), we also evaluated the effect of the microbial inoculation on the pest predator N. tenuis. Our results did not show any negative effects of the inoculations on the abundance of the predator, suggesting that microbe-induced resistance is compatible with the release of this predator, a generalist biocontrol agent commonly used in IPM programs.…”

“…1), the second most produced vegetable crop worldwide, as model system. We selected well characterized strains of bacteria and fungi, and previously designed SynComs to test their impact on yield and pest resistance in a commercial greenhouse that uses standard tomato management practices, including integrated pest management (IPM) methods (Acebedo et al, 2022). We hypothesized that microbial inoculations would bene t plant performance by reducing susceptibility to biotic stressors without major costs in plant growth or production even under standard crop management practices.…”

Impact of Soil Biodisinfection Techniques in Horticultural Crops on Profitability within the Framework of the Circular Economy

“…The production follows international standards such as GLOBALGAP [29,32,43], although organic production represents almost 10% of the greenhouse area [44].…”

Impact of environmental policies on the profitability of greenhouse agriculture in southeastern Spain

“…For example, biological control has been implemented in almost all crops grown in Almeria since 2009 with a particular focus on peppers. In addition, most producers in Almeria carry out their production under the integrated production standard in conjunction with other international certification standards (e.g., GLOBALGAP) (Acebedo et al, 2022; Cajamar, 2022; Junta de Andalucía, 2015). In 2021, organic production reached 2369 ha of protected crops where the addition of inputs of chemical origin is prohibited (COEXPHAL, 2022).…”