The winners of the Bernard Blum Award for the most innovative biocontrol products were announced today at Annual Biocontrol Industry Meeting (ABIM) in Basel, Switzerland.

This year’s competition received a record number of entries, with the panel of five judges facing more than double the usual number of entries.

Chosen from over 35 entries, the winners of the Bernard Blum Award for Novel Biocontrol Solutions are:

• Gold goes to DCM for their product PEA-02 (pictured)
• Silver goes to Signs for their product NoRed
• Bronze goes to Koppert for their product Nezapar

The winner of the category ‘Best Innovative product assisting biocontrol uptake’:

• BioBest for their product Trap-Eye

Dr Owen Jones, Chair of the Bernard Blum Award judging panel, told New AG International: “On behalf of the judging panel for this year’s Bernard Blum Award, I would like to say how pleased we were to have so many entries. It was a very hard task to decide on the winners but sticking to the strict assessment criteria for the competition there was at the end of the process a good degree of unanimity between the judges on the placements. We hope that everyone will agree that the short list candidates and the eventual winners fully deserved all the plaudits they received today based on the assessment criteria we observed.”

“The award winners were chosen for the high impact their innovations have on the management of pests or diseases whilst having a low impact on human health and the environment,” said Jennifer Lewis, executive director IBMA. “We need more and more innovative solutions like these to accelerate a global transition to resilient and sustainable agriculture that empowers farmers to work with nature and ensure food security for all.”

IBMA said a total of 37 applications were received in 2023 and each was scored independently against the following criteria: scientific foundation and merit; degree of innovation; and contribution to sustainable agriculture. Furthermore, the jury considers how novel the innovation is and its potential to make an impact on the market.