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Pests affecting stored product industry: biological control and detection of an invasive pest

Starting date: 21/09/2015 End date: 21/12/2018
Programme: Sustainable Plant Protection

Principal investigator:

Financing entities:

Arthropod pests in stored products involve significant losses of production, and a decrease in the quality of food with negative health implications for the consumers. The most important pests not only affect raw materials, but also final food products. They can be contaminated through the infestations present in the facilities where food is stored and processed, which are located in remote areas where waste accumulates. Weevils, moths and mites are the groups of arthropods that cause more problems in this sector. Control of these pests is based largely on the application of pesticides. But this strategy has significant limitations: there are few active materials available, there are abundant arthropod populations resistant to them, and their residues in foods have effects on consumer health and on the environment. Another added problem are the invasive pests that threaten to further complicate the scenario, since their number of interceptions, detections and settings continue to rise in the European countries.