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CABI’s presence was strong at this year’s International
Congress of Plant Pathology (ICPP). The 9th congress, entitled
“Healthy and safe food for everybody”, was held in the Lingotto Conference
Centre, Torino, Italy. There were participants from
84 countries and 1430 pre-registered. Attendees primarily visited
from Italy, USA and UK.
Source: http://www.icpp2008.org
The aim of ICPP 2008 was to address the latest advances in plant pathology and to consider the effects of plant diseases in the context of human well-being. The current state of plant pathology knowledge was explored, along with human food security and the role that plant pathology research is taking to assist the production of food and fibre for human use.
While Margo Leach, Sarah Mellor and I were marketing CABI products in the field of plant pathology, fellow CABI colleagues were among those invited to speak at the conference. Eric Boa spoke to congress members in the Tropical plant pathology session; “Information and communication technologies can do more to help farmers in developing countries: new methods for extension and research”. In the Plant pathology and global food security evening session, Peter Scott spoke of “ISPP and the challenge of food security”, closely followed by Harry Evans speaking on “Globalization and the threat to biosecurity”. In the concurrent session entitled “Knowledge transfer for plant pathology”, Janny Vos addressed delegates on “Knowledge transfer through farmer-participatory training and research”. Eric Boa’s second talk covered “Plant healthcare for poor farmers around the world: gathering demand and innovative responses”.
Once again, Peter Scott addressed delegates during Friday’s session on Global seed health: concerns and solutions with a presentation entitled “Information resources and their application in rationalizing seed health regulations”. To compliment this session, I demonstrated CABI’s Crop Protection Compendium to several congress delegates on CABI’s exhibition stand.
Information was disseminated in plenary, keynote and concurrent sessions covering a range of topics in plant pathology including: Concepts in biological control of plant pathogens; Tropical plant pathology; PCR protocols for rapid detection of plant pathogens; Plant pathology and global food security; Management of forest diseases; Soil disinfestation; Nematology and plant diseases; and Global seed health. The conference programme was full of interesting sessions, making the choice of which ones to attend a pleasant difficulty.