The Best Biological Resource You Don’t Know About
By Carol Miller, Editor, American Vegetable Grower
One of the best resources for biological pest management is, as of yet, virtually unknown in the U.S. A website managed by an inter-governmental non-profit organization packs a trove of biocontrol education, research, and treatment recommendations, all for free. To better understand all it has to offer, be sure to view the walk-through videos in this article.
BioProtectionPortal.com is a website managed by CAB International (better known as CABI), a non-profit created in 1910. CABI is governed by a UN treaty-level agreement between 49 member countries. The site launched in the U.S. in February 2023.
To learn more about CABI and about BioProtectionPortal.com, we spoke with Ulrich Kuhlmann, Executive Director, Global Operations.
Meister Media Worldwide: Let's just get started with the basics. Explain how CABI works.
Ulrich Kuhlmann: The good thing about our organization is that the member countries have a say in the governance of what we are doing. They decide in which direction we should go in supporting sustainable agriculture.
CABI has two different arms. One is international development. We do a lot of consultancy work at the government level, and also with the private sector, to advise on sustainable agricultural solutions.
And our other arm is CABI publishing, which is a major publisher of agriculture information globally, including books, ebooks, compendia, e-learning tools, and also digital decision-support tools.
Meister Media Worldwide: How did the CABI BioProtection Portal come about? And what was everyone's hope for the site?
Kuhlmann: When we looked at our global program, Plantwise, in which we were supporting Extension services in over 30 countries with diagnosis and management support for pests, we felt that it was a pity that, even in countries where bioprotection products were available and registered, they were not being used. There was an amazing lack of awareness of these kinds of tools.
The idea was born to at least increase awareness of these products. We decided we needed to develop a digital decision-support tool and make it available for free to all in the world. And so that was the starting point of this journey.
Meister Media Worldwide: Why do you think American growers and industry generally aren’t aware of CABI?
Kuhlmann: CABI is known to a number of people in USDA-ARS and also USDA-APHIS through the research work we are doing in the field of biological control solutions. Our publishing products, of course, are also known to a number of U.S. researchers.
We are currently seeking a partnership with Extension Service providers because we feel it is important that the Extension people are aware of our tool.
But reaching out to the advisory services or to the Extension services in the U.S., as well as farmers, is, of course, totally different. And here we need to learn a lot.
By simply entering a country, crop, and/or pest, the Portal will give you information on which products are registered for this scenario.
Meister Media Worldwide: What’s on the portal/site?
Kuhlmann: I feel that the portal is important because it is a tool where comprehensive information about which biological control products are registered and available across the globe can be found in one place. [It is] information which would probably be very difficult to obtain elsewhere. By simply entering a country, crop, and/or pest, the Portal will give you information on which products are registered for this scenario. For the U.S., you can also filter by state to specifically search for products registered in your area. It's very easy to maneuver and to handle.
The site is packed with features you’ll want to explore (like online training classes). Here’s a quick guide to what you’ll find.
The other good thing is that it's available not just in English but also in local languages.
The portal also houses a resources area, where a lot of bioprotection information is already available. Users can browse through this to learn more about the technology. I think it's this combination of being, firstly, a decision-support tool, for identifying which biological products are available and suitable for use in a given crop-pest situation, as well as, secondly, a provider of important basic and applied knowledge on what bioprotection is and how to apply it, that makes the Portal so unique and valuable for growers and advisors.
The other good thing is that it's available not just in English but also in local languages. We realized, that for the U.S., a lot of the farm force speaks Spanish. And so, we will make the portal available in Spanish for the U.S. over the coming months.
Meister Media Worldwide: How often are products in the site’s treatment-search portal updated? And how does someone who has a new product on the market make the list?
Kuhlmann: Currently, we have a system in place where countries with a large and active biocontrol market, like the United States, are updated every two months. In countries where we know that biocontrol products are registered less frequently, we are updating every six months. Then we have some markets where not too much is happening, and there we are updating every year.
For all countries on the Portal, as long as the product is registered nationally then it will appear on our site. And we are making sure that we keep as up to date with new product registrations as we can.
Meister Media Worldwide: What would prevent a product from being listed?
Kuhlmann: If a product is registered as a biological product at national/state level then it will be listed on the Portal. We follow national decisions and do not make any judgements about whether products should or should not be on the Portal ourselves.
For now, it’s about knowledge sharing. It is not on CABI’s agenda to try to harmonize the entire regulation of bioprotection products around the world.
The registration of bioprotection products around the world varies from one country to another. We are realizing how different regulation is from country to country. And how successfully the regulations are working in different countries, and how fast, or slow, the registration procedures are. So, we provide a little bit of insight for companies that are dealing with this process.
Ulrich Kuhlmann demonstrates how to use the CABI portal to find products to use for specific pests.
For now, it’s about knowledge sharing. It is not on CABI’s agenda to try to harmonize the entire regulation of bioprotection products around the world. That would be above our mandate. But we would like to make sure that people understand which kind of regulations are out there.
Meister Media Worldwide: Is your list created by the companies participating or by data pulled from government databases?
Kuhlmann: In the U.S., we only work with EPA. We use their published list of authorized products as our information source. So, all the biological control products registered in the U.S., you’ll find them in the portal. The partner companies have a huge advantage, because they are allowed to add more information to their product listings on the Portal. They have the opportunity to provide a product fact sheet, a product label, distributor contact information, and also advice on how to apply and handle the product. This is very valuable to the users and often they will view these products more often than non-partner products due to this accompanying information.
Meister Media Worldwide: During your site walk through, you mentioned you have classes that are 10 to 12 hours long. What kind of classes do you have?
Kuhlmann: Before COVID kicked in, our organization was a big fan of face-to-face training. And face-to-face training will not go away.
We also provide a course, which is already available online for free, on pest management in general, particularly focusing on integrated pest management. It takes about 10 to 12 hours to go through this course.
But we felt that we could provide certain information digitally. For example, diagnostics for pests. Someone who does not have too much experience in this area would quickly learn about the basics of how to recognize and identify a pest.
And coming very soon, is another e-learning course for advisory service providers and growers to learn the basics of bioprotection, including the different kind of bioprotection products available, how to select the right product, how to interpret labels, and how and when you apply them, and so on.
Now that you know how to use the portal, let’s try it out for the U.S.
