The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is set to celebrate the International Day of Plant Health on Thursday, May 12, 2022, a day critical in addressing global hunger as pests and diseases cause massive crop losses leaving millions without enough food.

The resolution sets out that healthy plants constitute the foundation for all life on Earth, ecosystem functions, food security, and nutrition, adding that plant health is key to the sustainable development of agriculture required to feed a growing global population by 2050.

Deputy Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Beth Bechdol, noted that the International Day of Plant Health is an opportunity to highlight the crucial importance of plant health, both in itself and as part of its One Health approach, encompassing human, animal and ecosystem health.

Sustaining plant health promotes food security

FAO estimates that plant pests and diseases cause up to 40 percent of food crop losses. The damage they cause to agriculture exacerbates the existing issue of growing world hunger and threatens rural livelihoods. Protecting plants from pests and diseases is far more cost-effective than dealing with plant health emergencies. Once established, plant pests and diseases are often impossible to eradicate, and managing them is time-consuming and expensive.

“Sustaining plant health promotes food security and nutrition while protecting the environment and biodiversity and boosting livelihoods and economic growth, in the context of global challenges, particularly climate change,” said Jingyuan Xia, Director of FAO’s Plant Production and Protection Division.

Osama El-Lissy, Secretary of the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) noted that “making the general public more aware of the role of plant health and the ways we need to act urgently to curb the risks of plant pests and diseases, and understanding how to restrict the spread of invasive pests, would make a significant contribution to global food security”.

The holistic approach in protecting plants

Building on the achievements of the International Year of Plant Health, the International Day of Plant Health has five specific objectives: Increase awareness of the importance of keeping plants healthy to achieve; Campaign to minimize the risk of spreading plant pests through trade and travel, by triggering compliance with international plant health standard; Strengthen monitoring and early warning systems to protect plants and plant health; Enable sustainable pest and pesticide management to keep plants healthy while protecting the environment; and Promote investment in plant health innovations, research, capacity development.

Desert locusts, fall armyworm, fruit flies, banana disease TR4, cassava diseases, and wheat rusts are among the most destructive transboundary plant pests and diseases of importance. Since the launch of the initiative in 2021, FAO has worked extensively to help curb the spread of quarantine and transboundary plant pests and diseases, which have increased dramatically in recent years. Globalization, trade and climate change, and reduced resilience in production systems due to decades of agricultural intensification, have all played a part.

The observance, held every May 12, was championed by Zambia and unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly in a resolution co-signed by Bolivia, Finland, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Tanzania.