Developing innovative phytosanitary measures for plant health - focus on systems approach for pest risk management

Plant health is critical for agriculture, forestry, ecosystems, and biodiversity on a global scale. However, maintaining healthy crops is becoming increasingly challenging due to climate change, biodiversity loss, globalisation, and international trade, which accelerate the spread of pests and diseases. These threats can severely harm crops, native plants, and the environment, jeopardising agricultural sustainability, biodiversity, and food security.

Effective plant health measures play a vital role in protecting sustainable agriculture and enhancing global food security, safeguarding the environment, forests, and biodiversity, and facilitating economic and trade development. A systems approach to plant health is a comprehensive pest risk management strategy that integrates different measures, at least two of which act independently, with cumulative effect and of high efficacy[[ International Standard for Phytosanitary Measures No. 14. The use of integrated measures in a systems approach for pest risk management [https://www.ippc.int/en/publications/607]]. The systems approach is designed to effectively meet phytosanitary import requirements, allowing for the consideration of measures and procedures that contribute to effective pest risk management throughout the entire value chain, from pre-planting and pre-harvest stages to harvest, post-harvest handling, transport, and distribution. By integrating multiple measures, this approach enhances the ability to manage pest risks comprehensively and sustainably, ensuring the health of plants and the safety of agricultural products across borders. Proposals should target one or more plant pests[[ A pest is defined here as any species, strain or biotype of plant, animal or pathogenic agent injurious to plants or plant products (EU legislation, Regulation 2016/2031)]], providing a clear explanation and justification for the selected pest(s) in alignment with the proposal’s objectives and the topic’s expected outcomes.

Proposals should:

• develop innovative climate and environmental-friendly measures for a highly efficacious pest risk management to be implemented across the value chain to meet the phytosanitary requirements in a variety of socio-economic contexts;
• evaluate risk reduction, cost-effectiveness, scalability, and sustainability, of each proposed innovative measures;
• design and validate protocols targeting systems approaches, considering the whole value chain;
• assess the combined effect of all measures and their interactions across the value chain, including cost-effectiveness, scalability, and overall sustainability (economic, social and environmental aspects);
• support capacity building and training of the actors within the value chain, enabling the large-scale adoption of safe, innovative, cost-effective measures.

International cooperation is strongly encouraged. Results should benefit diverse farming systems/approaches, such as conventional and organic farming.

Proposals must implement the ‘multi-actor approach’ including a range of actors to ensure that knowledge and needs from various sectors such as research, plant health services, farming/forestry sectors, advisory services, and other relevant actors of the value chain are brought together. This topic should involve the effective contribution of social sciences and humanities (SSH) disciplines.

Proposals may provide financial support to third parties (FSTP) to, for instance, develop, test and demonstrate innovative measures. A maximum of 10% of the EU funding should be allocated to this purpose. Consortia need to define the selection process of organisations, for which financial support may be granted.

The possible participation of the JRC in the project could involve supporting the analysis to understand the acceptance and adoption of innovative measures across the value chain.

Proposals should ensure coherence and complementarities with ongoing relevant Horizon Europe projects and capitalise on existing relevant research findings and tools, included those developed under previous research projects.

The proposals should include a dedicated task in the workplan and appropriate resources to collaborate with the projects funded under this topic.