The Future Is Bright! Q&A With IR-4 Project’s Leader
December 16, 2023 As part of our special digital report celebrating the IR-4 Project as an industry partner, Greenhouse Grower Editor Brian Sparks recently went one-on-one with IR-4 Project’s Executive Director Jerry Baron.
Check out some of their Q&A and find out why Baron is excited for the future.
As the needs of specialty crop growers evolve, particularly when it comes to the emergence of biologicals, how is IR-4 evolving to help growers address those needs?
Baron: We’re right in middle of what’s going on in the pest management world. Because we’re so closely intertwined with so many parties, we’re seeing how crop protection companies both big and small are expanding into newer technologies and different areas for products. In some cases, the bigger companies like Bayer, Syngenta, and BASF are purchasing smaller companies that are coming up with some innovative solutions.
At the same time, a lot of the products that have become the standard-bearers are under increased scrutiny both by the government and the public. We’re seeing products become basically unusable. Europe may put a restriction on it, which means U.S. growers can’t export it into Europe because they don’t have a good system to segregate what’s going into domestic markets and what’s going into international markets. The easiest thing for them to do is not to use that product. So we’re seeing that there’s unprecedented challenges occurring here. What we’re trying to focus on is what it’s going to take to be part of the transition from pest management as we knew it to pest management for the future.
There’s a lot of innovative technologies and products that are being developed from the pharma industry that may have some capacity. We’re trying to adjust our research infrastructure to be able to match up with some of these new products that are coming out. We’re also seeing that there’s probably more need for IR-4 to do more performance testing than we’ve had in the past, when we were doing chemical residue testing. So much more of our focus is going into that particular area in the future.
That means that down the line, IR-4 may need the capacity to do microbial testing. We’re trying to be on the cutting edge, and we’re also trying to monitor what’s going on in the world around us, making sure that we’re relevant 60 years into the future.
There’s a lot of work being done by IR-4 on behalf of the industry that growers may not know a lot about. What are some of the most important things that growers should know about what IR-4 does?
Baron: I think the most important thing the growers need to know is we are here for them. There may be cases where a grower has a pest management problem, and all of a sudden a few years later, a new product registration shows up. I don’t think growers always have a good understanding of what goes into getting that new use.
Jerry Baron
We as an organization probably need to share more with the growers that we are a national research program that is looking out for the voids in pest management, and trying to develop solutions and move them through the regulatory process.
What excites you the most about you the future of this industry?
Baron: It’s an excitement and a fear at the same time. By 2050, we’ll be talking about 10 billion people living on Earth. What can we do to make sure we all have enough food to eat? There’s a lot of food that’s wasted today that can be repurposed. You’ve heard of ugly fruit that used to go into seconds. Now it’s becoming a specialty in many areas, and sometimes it’s even bred to be tiny. This new market could be utilized to help solve this problem going forth in the future. Our collective contributions can all lead to help make things better.
For more of the Q&A with Jerry Baron, read the full article as part of our special digital report.
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