Every year the United Nations addresses a topic to be enhanced and given greater importance within the Sustainable Development strategy. On December 2, 2019, through the Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO, declares 2020 as the International Year of Plant Health -IYPH-, whose goal is to raise global awareness on how protecting plant health can help end hunger, reduce poverty, protect the environment, and boost economic development.

 Plants constitute 80% of the food we eat and produce 98% of the oxygen we breathe. However, they face constant and growing threat from pests and diseases.

Every year, up to 40% of global food crops is lost due to plant pests and diseases. This causes yearly losses in the agricultural trade of more than 220,000 million US dollars, causes millions of people to suffer from hunger, and severely harms agriculture, main income source for poor rural communities.   Therefore, policies and promotion measures on plant health are fundamental to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

 At Grupo HAME / REPSA we are aware of the importance of plant health in agricultural crops, mainly when these are intended for food; we also recognize the importance of plant health in the ecosystems around us, as a key element in strengthening the programs on plant health in oil palm plantations.

 In terms of plant health, plans and programs should be aimed at preventing attacks from pests and diseases, assessing general risks for agriculture, the plantation system, and surrounding ecosystems. The main prevention strategy is to have a plan on plant nutrition that reduces plant vulnerability to pest attacks and severity of diseases that insects can transmit to the plant. 

 Then the integrated pest management -IPM- program should be based on preventing actions, such as monitoring of pests and diseases in the plantation. For this purpose, sampling stations are located within the plantation, and field personnel specialized on identification of pest insects and disease symptoms in palm plants is assigned for samplings. Additionally, palm leaves are checked inside the monitoring station to know their health status.

 Through the monitoring of sampling stations effective and accurate decisions can be made, anticipating damage that can be significant for the plantation whether of pest or disease. The timing of decision making is decisive, as you can opt for more environmentally friendly controls like the biological control, which is based on the release of living organisms naturally present in neighboring ecosystems, and which reduce the number of populations of harmful insect, without damaging beneficial insect species present within the plantation and its surroundings.

If pest control with chemical products is required, those products that have low toxicity, with blue or green labels with focused applications (accurate location within the plantation) and not generalized applications to the whole plantation, are always assessed. Use of chemical products for pest and disease control is assessed on a yearly basis, to reduce the quantity of these products applied to the plantation.

Also, in the IPM, ethological control has been included with tramp setting for pest control, in which specific attractant baits for unwanted insects are placed, and regular visits are carried out to review the number of catches and be able to project levels of populations present.

Part of the IPM incorporates agroclimatic practices within the plantation, which consist of several actions like the establishment of nectar plant plots as ecosystem for beneficial insects because they control populations of pest insects. Another action is the reduction of applications of chemical products for weed control, with the aim that the plant cover retains soil moisture but also facilitates the transfer of beneficial insects within the plantation.

At Grupo HAME / REPSA, we are committed to the control of diseases that affect the plantation and can even become risks for neighboring plantations. The main controlled disease is the red ring, that causes plugging in the plant vessel conducts that prevents water and sap flowing, reducing the plant food capacity, and producing short-term death. This disease is monitored since 2010 because of the efforts to control the vector insect transmitting it, and to cure the plants that suffer from it, 2020 is the year with lower incidence of cases of the red ring in REPSA plantations.

There are other diseases that are no-shows in the plantation and that prevention and containment activities in the IPM are being implemented. Presence of the disease known as White scale of the coconut tree (Parlagena bennetti) was identified in Guatemala in 2017. This disease appears in the plant leaves, reducing their photosynthetic capacity because of leaf area loss, reducing the photosynthetic capacity of the plant, and the normal development towards flower and fruit production. Currently this disease has been identified in the north-eastern zone of the country, specifically in Izabal. Therefore, containment protocols of this disease have been implemented, preventing visits from both the company´s personnel to plantations in the mentioned territory and from these plantations to those of REPSA. Another control is assessing the fruit received from suppliers of the fresh fruit bunches supply chain to rule out entry of the disease in such way in the operations. Review and inspection of the White scale symptoms in the plantations have been included in the monitoring program, through training of plant health personnel so they are able to identify it.

The SDG 15 “Promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss” defines the goal to integrating ecosystem and conservation values in planning, development processes, and has been considered in the environmental commitments of the company included in the Policy of Responsible and Sustainable Production, and operational plans and programs. Plant health in harmony with the ecosystems is a goal we have as a company.

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