Synthesis Report Of The Methyl Bromide Interim Scientific Assessment And Methyl Bromide Interim Technology And Economic Assessment

This volume provides an overview of quarantine treatment for pests of food plants that involve heat, cold, irradiation, fumigants, modified atmospheres, and other techniques alone or in combination. The contributors discuss strategies for eliminating or reducing the need for post-harvest treatment by ensuring that commodities are free of all pests

This book contains 14 chapters focusing on the usefulness of controlled atmosphere (CA) storage in the reduction of postharvest losses and maintenance of the nutritive value and organoleptic characteristics of various fruits and vegetables and extend their season of availability by making good eating quality fruits and vegetables available for extended periods at reasonable costs. The efficacy and shortcomings of various CA storage techniques and their potential as alternatives to the application of preservation and pesticide chemicals are also discussed.

This major two volume work presents a new decision making tool which enables manufacturers and scientists to undertake life cycle assessment (LCA) of new products from the design and development stages. The methodology allows the environmental consequences of a product to enter into decision making in the same way as traditional commercial parameters such as price, quality etc. Significantly, it is in accordance with international consensus, as defined by SETAC (Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry) and ISO (International Organization for Standardization). Moreover, the individual steps have been made operational through the creation of a collection of tools for assessment. The books are derived from the Environmental Design of Industrial Products (EDIP) programme organized by the Technical University of Denmark and five leading Danish companies. The project was sponsored by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Confederation of Danish Industries.

Several Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approaches are available for managing pests of varied kinds, including individual and integrated methods for pest suppression. Recently the focus has shifted to pest management tools that act on insect systems selectively, are compatible with the environment, and are not harmful for ecosystems. Other approaches target specific biochemical and physiological aspects of insect metabolism, and involve biotechnological and genetic manipulation. Still other approaches include the use of nanotechnology, endophytes, optical and sonic manipulation to detect and control pest insects. Unfortunately, conventional forms of pest management do not focus on technology transfer to the ground level workers and farmers. As a result, farmers are incurring huge losses of crops and revenues. This book highlights the importance of using communication tools in pest management and demonstrates some success stories of utilizing automated unmanned technologies in this context. The content is divided into three sections, the first of which, “Pest Population Monitoring: Modern Tools,” covers long and short-range pest population monitoring techniques and tools such as satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles/drones, remote sensing, digital tools like GIS, GPS for mapping, lidar, mobile apps, software systems, artificial diet designs and functional diversity of info-chemicals. The second section of the book is devoted to “Emerging Areas in Pest Management” and offers a glimpse of diversified tactics that have been developed to contain and suppress pest populations such as endophytes, insect vectors of phytoplasma, Hymenopterans parasitoids, mass production and utilization of NPV etc. In turn, the third section focuses on “Integrated Pest Management” and presents farming situations that illustrate how research in diversified aspects has helped to find solutions to specific pest problems, and how some new and evolving tactics can be practically implemented. Given its scope, the book offers a valuable asset for entomology and plant pathology researchers, students of zoology and plant protection, and readers whose work involves agriculture, horticulture, forestry and other ecosystems.