A Sino-UK project was launched in Beijing on June 23 to rationalize the use of pesticides against locusts through the creation of a remote sensing monitoring system. Supported by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Newton Agri-Tech Fund, the project is jointly led by RADI and the Center for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI) in collaboration with several other Chinese and UK partners.

The project focuses on the monitoring locust habitats and forecasting pest by combining optical and radar remote sensing ways with disease / pest forecast models, based on quantitative remote sensing technology and plant protection knowledge. The project’s final objective is to achieve scientific management of locust and rational use of pesticide, thus to improve crop yield and protect the environment.

At the inception workshop, Bryony Taylor from CABI and Prof. HUANG Wenjiang from RADI delivered keynote presentations to introduce the project, overview, task deployments, and outputs. Researchers from participating agencies introduced their backgrounds and briefly summarized how they will be involved in the project. After discussion, nine work packages were created to tackle the key problems of crop disease and pest monitoring and the integration pattern of the outcomes.

The inception workshop on the Sino-UK project.

Participants of this project visit RADI.