Challenges to Food Security Require Innovative Solutions: Oxitec is Developing Next-Generation Technology to Counter Fall Armyworm

As the world grapples with these unprecedented times, we’re reminded of just how tightly inter-woven our lives and livelihoods are. We’re also reminded of how important it is to work together to solve global challenges.

In the case of agriculture and creating a sustainable food supply, our shared global challenge is to produce more food, more efficiently and with a smaller environmental footprint, around the world.

One major obstacle - insects that feed on crops - pose a constant threat to farmers’ harvests and livelihoods, and impede our pursuit of sustainable, productive agricultural systems for the future.

Fall armyworm is one such devastating and increasingly global insect pest. In Brazil, where more than 40 million acres of corn are planted each year, the fall armyworm is the most damaging pest. Given that Brazil is one of the world’s largest corn producers, this has an impact on local farmers, the Brazilian economy, and could potentially reduce the availability of corn grain for importing countries, affecting people around the world.

Fall armyworm threatens the effectiveness of insecticides and biotech pest-resistant corn which farmers currently use. This means higher in-field losses and, in some cases, severe destruction of corn crops.

As fall armyworm spreads rapidly beyond the borders of North and South America to Africa and Asia, we believe collaboration will lead to significant advances that will help counter this challenge.

A unique collaboration between Oxitec and Bayer is doing just that.

The companies are working together closely to develop a Friendly™ fall armyworm that will help combat this damaging pest with initial focus on Brazil.

Powered by Oxitec’s Friendly™ technology, originally developed at Oxford University, this approach uses male self-limiting fall armyworm moths to find and mate with female fall armyworm moths in corn fields. These females produce no female offspring in the next generation, meaning fewer caterpillars eating and damaging the crop and fewer egg-laying female moths. Releases of these self-limiting male moths are also expected to offer active protection of biotech crops and other tools against resistant fall armyworm caterpillars, meaning that these protection measures remain effective for longer.

The Oxitec Friendly™ fall armyworm is a safe, non-toxic and species-specific control tool that has no impact on beneficial species like bees, butterflies and is self-limiting in the environment. This collaboration represents our collective effort to develop safe, sustainable and highly effective technologies to bolster farmers’ ability to manage these devastating pests.

Oxitec’s Friendly™ technology has been tested successfully around the world in multiple trials of insects like the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the Mediterranean fruit fly and the diamondback moth, and has been proven safe, effective, and self-limiting. More recently, Oxitec joined the fight against malaria, with two malaria-transmitting mosquitoes now in our list of target pest insects. More than 100 peer-reviewed studies have been published on Oxitec’s technology, providing a strong scientific foundation for this technology. The fall armyworm research program operates under responsible stewardship protocols, and under the observation and approval of Brazil's regulatory agencies.

And just as we’re using our global experience to bring new and innovative tools to fall armyworm research, our collaboration is global in nature too. The work is being driven by an international team of passionate scientists in Europe, Brazil and the US. Oxitec’s technology represents an opportunity for us to take a major leap forward in how we can manage fall armyworm and other agricultural pests, and the collaboration has enabled our team of world-class innovators to work with Bayer’s industry-leading research and development teams.

We are proud of this collaboration and believe it represents the type of dynamic partnership that can advance our company mission to protect lives and livelihoods from insects that transmit disease and destroy crops.

Grey Frandsen, CEO, Oxitec

*This post appeared on LinkedIn 24 September 2020.

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