Recently, ERA Pesticide Free newsletter introduced PollinERA’s mission, team expertise, methodologies and objectives. It emphasises the goal of the project to reverse pollinator population declines and reduce the harmful impacts of pesticides through developing knowledge and protocols for a broad range of toxicological testing, feeding to in silico models.

Every two weeks, the ERA Pesticide Free newsletter is prepared by a different member of the European Research Alliance "Towards a Chemical Pesticide-free Agriculture”. Chaired by the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE), this Alliance brings together 34 European research institutes for a new transdisciplinary, multi-stakeholder research strategy providing solutions for the transition to chemical pesticide-free agriculture.

This edition of the newsletter is prepared by project partner University of Bologna, who are among the members of the European Research Alliance. The Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences of the University of Bologna has a long experience in studying the impacts of pesticides on bees and other insect pollinators. In PollinERA, UNIBO aims to contribute to covering the ecotoxicological gaps in pesticide exposure and impact on pollinators. In collaboration with other partners, UNIBO will perform laboratory studies and develop standardised protocols to assess the sensitivity of different pollinator species to individual pesticides and mixtures. UNIBO will also collaborate in developing and testing a co-monitoring scheme for pesticides and pollinators across European cropping systems and landscapes, and in developing pesticide risk indicators. Data provided by UNIBO activities will be crucial in developing the PollinERA models and open the way towards a holistic and systems-based ERA for pesticides.

Read the newsletter here.