Crop Pest Geographies

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Crop pests and diseases are a perennial problem the world over. However, crops grown in some locales are more prone to infection than others, and the risk of persistent pest pressures also varies from location to location. Beginning in 2008, InSTePP has led efforts to model and map the occurrence and persistence of key crop pests and diseases worldwide to facilitate a spatially explicit assessment of the biotic risks to crop production. InSTePP has also developed and implemented bio-economic modelling methods to assess the probabilistic loss consequences of key crop pests, as well as the research investment implications of these biotic losses. This work complements the center’s long standing research interests in the economics of production risks facing agriculture more generally and the bio-economics of crop resistance management.

These data and analytics were developed in close collaboration with colleagues from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Australia, the USDA’s Cereal Disease Laboratory, St Paul Minnesota, and University of Minnesota colleagues from the Stakman-Borlaug Center for Sustainable Plant Health, Department of Entomology, and the Department of Plant Pathology within the College of Food Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences. The work has been facilitated by support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation by way of the HarvestChoice project, the University of Minnesota, CSIRO and CIMMYT (The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, El Batan, Mexico).