Developing Enabling Technologies for Improved Plant Health using Nuclear Techniques - Addressing Transboundary Pests and Diseases

Enhancing plant health capacities across Member States is essential for safeguarding major staple crops against emerging and transboundary pests and diseases, thereby strengthening agricultural resilience and food security. The rapid spread of high-impact threats driven by climate change, expanding agricultural trade, and the increased movement of seed and planting material, underscores the urgent need for timely detection, rapid diagnostics and proactive disease and pest management strategies. This Coordinated Research Project (CRP) will address priority threats affecting globally important crops, using representative pathosystems such as wheat blast in wheat or fall armyworm in maize, late blight and bacterial wilt in potato, and cassava witches’ broom disease in cassava. These pests and diseases pose significant risks to both smallholder and commercial production systems across Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Europe. The CRP aims to strengthen crop resilience by generating and characterizing novel genetic diversity through nuclear techniques, accelerating breeding pipelines for disease and pest resistance, and developing cost-effective, field-deployable diagnostic tools to support early detection and surveillance. The CRP will also strengthen integrated disease-management strategies by advancing the development and deployment of nuclear-enabled sustainable biological control agents, supporting environmentally sustainable approaches to suppress key pests and pathogens across diverse production systems.
Through collaborative research, technology transfer, and targeted capacity building, this initiative will enable Member States to detect, monitor and manage transboundary plant health threats more effectively and accelerate the development of resistant varieties. By reinforcing national plant health and breeding systems, the CRP will help safeguard sustainable crop production and improve resilience to evolving biotic stresses. Ultimately, the CRP seeks to contribute to global food security through enhanced preparedness, improved plant-health systems, and resilient agricultural practices.