Hunger, Poverty, and Protection of Biodiversity: Opportunities and Challenges for Biological Control

The role and contribution of biological control to hunger and poverty alleviation, and protection of biodiversity are discussed in context of the global development agenda. These linked themes are projected to continue occupying the global development agenda for the foreseeable future. Hunger and poverty alleviation efforts have frequently focused on improving agricultural production inter alia with a view to provide adequate but safe food to meet local and export demands especially to northern markets. Such markets have increasingly put stringent requirements on imported food including minimum acceptable pesticide residue levels. Recent years have also seen a rise in demand for organic food, providing more opportunities for export of tropical produce. Implicit in these trends has been the growing need for ecological crop management. From this context, it is inferred that there is a demand for biological control as a tool to manage the large number of native and alien pests. Another area for application of biological control is the management of invasive alien species (IAS) in the context of biodiversity conservation, under article 8h of the Convention on Biological Diversity. An assessment of the trends in biological control research and application suggest that there has been little growth despite increased opportunities and challenges.