Newton Fund - Reduced pesticide contamination of groundwater

农药流失造成的供水污染是巴西的一个主要问题。这在棉花种植区尤其严重，因为对棉铃虫等害虫使用了大量的杀虫剂。此外，所需的杀虫剂成本导致棉花种植面积减半，给农民带来收入损失，特别是在该国较贫穷的东北部地区。该项目汇集了英国和巴西的商业和学术合作伙伴，旨在开发一种控制棉铃象和其他害虫的诱杀技术。它含有一种信息素，专门吸引靶标害虫，并含有少量杀虫剂或生物杀虫剂来杀死它。这些设备将由新型可生物降解聚合物建造，因此它们的制造和部署简单且廉价，而且不需要在本赛季结束时收集。这些设备将在巴西进行现场测试，并由巴西合作伙伴注册。它们的使用应该会大大减少棉花上的杀虫剂用量，减少地下水污染，更好和更便宜的虫害防治，并改善棉花种植者的生计。

Contamination of water supplies due to pesticide run-off is a major problem in Brazil. This is particularly severein cotton-growing areas because of the large amounts of pesticide used against insect pests such as the bollweevil. Furthermore, the cost of pesticides required has lead to a halving of the area of cotton grown with aconsequent loss of income for farmers, particularly in the poorer North East of the country. This project bringstogether UK and Brazilian commercial and academic partners with the aim of developing a lure-and-killtechnology for control of boll weevil and other pests. This contains a pheromone to attract specifically thetarget pest and a low loading of insecticide or biopesticide to kill it. The devices will be constructed of novelbiodegradable polymers so that they are simple and cheap to manufacture and deploy and do not need to becollected in at the end of the season. The devices will be field tested in Brazil and registered by the Brazilianpartners. Their use should greatly reduce the amount of insecticide applied to cotton and give reducedcontamination of groundwater, better and cheaper pest control and improved livelihoods for cotton growers.