From 27 to 30 September 2022, the olive congress entitled “Initiatives to increase resilience in the olive sector”, organised by the International Olive Council (IOC), was held in Évora and Lisbon (Portugal).
DOMCA has been invited to take part in this important event as a representative of the European project BIOVEXO, whose main objective is the search for innovative biopesticides against the pest. Xylella fastidiosa, The disease is an emerging bacterium that has devastated olive production in southern Italy in recent years and is already affecting olive groves in the Balearic Islands and almond production in the Valencia region, causing millions of dollars in losses to the sector.
Our colleague Ana Falcón, researcher in the Microbiology and Biotechnology department of DMC Research Center SL has been in charge of presenting the research being carried out in the framework of the BIOVEXO project and the role of DOMCA in the development of innovative, sustainable and environmentally friendly biopesticides for the control of emerging pests such as Xylella fastidiosa.
The event was chaired by Jaime Lillo, Executive Director of the IOC and moderated by Catarina Bairrao Balula, Director of Technical Cooperation of the IOC. It was also attended by the Councillor for Agriculture of the Alentejo region (Portugal), Jose Godinho, who was in charge of opening the conference and the Portuguese Minister of Agriculture and Food, Maria do Céu Antunes, who presided over the closing ceremony.
During the 3 days of the event, the various project coordinators and interested experts were able to present their results and discuss aspects related to the promotion of resilience in the olive sector, from increasing tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses resulting from climate change through the inclusion of new resistant genetic varieties to the development of sustainable control strategies for the control of emerging and re-emerging pathogens, as DOMCA is developing within the framework of the BIOVEXO project. It is worth highlighting the importance of the knowledge transfer between researchers, experts and farmers that took place during the conference, which allowed DOMCA to learn more about the problems of the agricultural sector and to present the solutions that are being developed in the different research projects.
