Annual Biocontrol Industry Meeting - ABIM 2024, 21-23 October 2024

Opening and Welcome note by the Executive Board ABIM AG

Jennifer Lewis, Executive Director IBMA Global
Lucius Tamm, CEO ABIM AG

Bernard Blum Award

All Presentations

Alain Querrioux, CEO Andermatt France, Treasurer IBMA Global 
Helma Verberkt, Managing Director, Artemis

Best Innovative Product Assisting Uptake of Biocontrol:  The Crop Capsule Company for Cotton Cap which targets Silverleaf Whitefly (Bemisia tabaci) in broad acre rain grown and irrigated cotton production systems

Gold: Certis Belchim/Certis Biologicals for Toltek, a solution that combats Take-all, one of Europe’s most devastating cereal diseases

Silver: Cearitis for their push & pull combination, Remo/Pira/Samo, a method that effectively targets fruit flies

Bronze: Biotalys for their protein-based solution, EVOCA, designed to protect crops from potentially catastrophic fungal diseases

Session 1: Pivotal Moments in Biocontrol - what's made the difference, lessons learned
Chair person: Herman Van Mellaert, President IBMA Global and Director Strategic Alliances, Biobest NV) 

Pam Marrone, Co-founder and Executive Chair, Invasive Species Corporation
Taking stock of where we are and where we need to go to advance innovation and adoption

Peter Maes, Chief Strategy Officer, Koppert
Pivotal milestones of Biocontrol in Horticulture

Vicente Dalmau, Head of Plant Health Service, Valencian Department of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries
Biocontrol success stories in Valencia region

Saulo Silva Delgado, Senior Manager Business Development and Innovation, BP Bunge Bioenergia
Sugar cane as an example of the role of biocontrol in sustainable food systems

Asefeh Golreihan, Regulatory Manager, LKC Switzerland Ltd.
Harnessing Precision Farming for Enhanced Bioprotection: Innovations, Applications, and Challenges 

Mark Trimmer, Managing Partner, DunhamTrimmer
Major forces driving biocontrol market expansion worldwide

Workshop: Regulatory Seminar
Moderators: Emmanuelle Bonneris, Regulatory Manager Europe, Middle East, and Africa of Biosolutions, Bayer SAS and José Carvalho, EMEA Regulatory Lead, Certis Biologicals

Claudio Mereu, Partner, EU regulatory, competition and trade, Fieldfisher Belgium
Legal means to obtain a legal definition of 'biocontrol' and speed up access to the EU market

Emanuele Diniz, Manager - Agro Division, VIGNA Brasil Group
Biopesticides Registration in Brazil - Updates

Shaoli Das Gupta, Biostimulants Regulatory Expert, Battelle
Comparison of Biostimulant and Biopesticide regulations in key African nations

Jochem Rutters, Business Unit Manager,Decares B.V. Trading as Triskelion
Molecular fingerprinting for botanicals

Inge Huygens, Regulatory Affairs Manager, ARCHE Consulting
Sustainable coformulants in PPPs – a regulatory perspective and outlook

Domenico Deserio, Policy Officer, Directorate General for Health and Food Safety
Regulatory update on EU Activities on biocontrol

Keynote and panel discussion Biocontrol and the Future of Farming
Chair person and moderator: Alessandra Moccia, Vice President, IBMA Global and Senior Director of Global Regulatory Affairs, Suterra

Recording

Bernard Lehmann, Agricultural and Food Economist, Chairperson of the Foundation Board of the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL)
The role of biocontrol in shaping the future of agriculture

Panel discussion wtih:
Alessandra Moccia, Vice President IBMA Global
Bernard Lehmann, Agricultural and Food Economist
Saulo Delgado, Senior Manager Business Development and Innovation bp bioenergy
Pierre Girard, Science journalist and video-maker ARTE
Saliou Niassy, Coordinator African Union Inter-African Phytosanitary Council
Max Schulman, Farmer, Senior Advisor, cereals oilseeds Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners (MTK) Finland
Herman Van Mellaert, President IBMA Global and Director Strategic Alliances Biobest NV

Session 2: Global Overview of Enabling Policies
Chair person: Bart Sosef, IBMA Council Member and President of Plant Products, a division of Biofirst Group

Ketan Mehta, President, Bio Protection Global (Federation of Companies in Agri Bio Solutions) Founder-CEO, Ecosense Labs. (I) Pvt. Ltd.
The power of policies to instigate change, success stories from India

Edouard Lehmann, Research and Innovation Brokerage Manager, Committee Linking Entrepreneurship – Agriculture – Development (COLEAD)
Better access to biocontrol for LDC organics: securing Annex VI listing under (EU) Reg. 2021/1165 

Geoffroy Moulin, Innovation Manager, Staphyt
An overview of the possibilities to finance innovation

Luca Volontè, Senior Research Analyst, S&P Global Commodity Insights
M&A and multinationals’ investments as a catalyst for growth and innovation in biocontrol

Mette Peetz, European Biosolutions Coalition
Perspectives of the European Biosolutions Coalition

Workshop: RATION I

​Dimitrios Karpouzas, Professor in Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology, Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, University of Thessaly 
​Overview of RATION project

Joao Godinho, Wageningen University, The Netherlands
Setting the scene for a new risk assessement scheme

Gunter Brader, AIT, Austria ​
Introduction to risk assessment for microbial pesticides and microbiome solutions

Joao Saraiva, Senior Scientist UFZ-Leipzig, Germany
New microbiome tools risk assessment

Belen Guijarro, Senior Researcher at CSIC (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Spain) Department of Plant Protection, INIA-CSIC
New tool for Whole Genome Sequence (WGS) analysis of microbial pesticides

Session 3: Regulatory environment
Chair person: Alessandra Moccia, Vice President, IBMA Global and Senior Director of Global Regulatory Affairs, Suterra

Recording

Carlos Goulart, Secretary of Animal and Plant Health, Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock of Brazil
Madison Le, Director Biopesticides and Pollution Prevention Division U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Eric Liégeois, Senior Policy Officer European Commission - DG SANTE
Saliou Niassy, Coordinator African Union Inter-African Phytosanitary Council
Maria Trainer, Executive Director Registration Management Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority 

Workshop RATION II

Ofir Ramot, Metabolic Insights, Israel, Leading Scientist
​Introduction to risk assessments for plant extracts, semiochemicals, and pheromones

Judith Epping, PhD candidate Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management Group (AEW) Wageningen University, The Netherlands
Botanicals risk assessment

Karine Mouret-Grosbeau, EU and France Regulatory Manager CBC Biogard
Semiochemicals risk assessment

Khalid Amari, JKI, Germany
​Introduction to risk assessments for dsRNA pesticides

Salvatore Arpaia, Research Director ENEA, Italy
Risk assessment priorities for ds-RNA pesticides

Session 4: Biocontrol Innovations
Chair person: Flavio Lupato, IBMA Council Member and General Manager at Koppert Italy

Annabelle Gilgen, Technical Development Manager, Biocontrol Amoéba
AXPERA: a new biofungicide based on a lysate of the non-pathogenic amoeba Willaertia magna C2c Maky

Ené Leppik, Chief Technical Officer, Agriodor
Control of Sugar Beet Yellows Viruses by Behavioral Manipulation of Aphid Vectors in the Field Using

Marc Letroublon, Portfolio Lead at Bayer Crop Science
Ibisio, a plant-based sustainable solution for replacing synthetic seed  treatments to repel birds damaging

Magdalena Wey, PhD Student, Agroscope Switzerland / ETH Zürich
Attract-and-infest trap to disseminate Metarhizium brunneum in the adult populations of the Japanese

Carlo Boutton, Chief Scientific Officer, Biotalys
The AGROBODY Foundry: Biotalys’ innovative platform to generate novel and sustainable biocontrols

Rebekka Leitner, Expert Process Engineer, Evologic Technologies GmbH
Unlocking a bioherbicide by formulation

Session 5: Attention Agripreneurs!
Chair person: Lucius Tamm, CEO ABIM AG

Session with investors in partnership with Accumont.

Hadyn Parry, Chairman Aphea.Bio, LettUs Grow and PBL Technology 
Eduardo Quemada, CEO Genomics4All 
Pam Marrone, Co-founder and Executive Chair, Invasive Species Corporation 
Gilad Yarkoni, CEO & Co-Founder Platypus 
Caecilia Potter, Founder/CEO VensoGrow 
Valérie Renard, CEO Hedera-22 

Session 6: The Future is Biocontrol
Chair person: Jennifer Lewis, Executive Director IBMA Global

Pascal Chapot, Group Head of Sustainable Agriculture Development, Nestlé
Challenges in sourcing and providing sustainable produce to meet consumer demands

Lieselot Van der Veken, Pro Terra Agro
Biocontrol’s potential to drive regenerative tropical fruits value Chains

Keith Pitts, SVP-Sustainability and Regulatory Strategy, Bioceres Crop Solutions
How farmer programs are supporting farmers to adopt and use biocontrol solutions

Cathy Xi Cao, Project manager of Financing Agrochemical Reduction and Management (FARM) FARM Project GGKP
Agrochemical Reduction and Management Programme

Matthew Pickard, Head of Biologicals and Seedcare Europe, Syngenta
How manufacturers are responding to value chain needs for biological control

Antonio Zem, President of BIOTROP (a BIOFIRST company)
The future of biocontrol…