Trans-e-Bio

The Trans-e-Bio project, part of the Biocontrol 4.0 initiative, develops digital tools to support the adoption of biocontrol solutions in agriculture across the France-Wallonia-Flanders (FWV) border region. By integrating local risk detection and predictive models, the project helps farmers optimize treatment timing and reduce synthetic pesticide use.

Trans-e-bio Multitel

Under the impetus of the European Union, regional policies aimed at reducing the use of synthetic pesticides in agriculture have been put in place on all three sides of the France-Wallonia-Vlaanderen (FWV) border zone. In France, the national Ecophyto2+ plan aims to reduce the use of conventional plant protection products by 50% by 2025. Wallonia launched its 3rd Pesticide Reduction Program for the period 2023 to 2027 in October 2022. Flanders has aligned itself with the Belgian federal plan. Agricultural production using fewer synthetic pesticides is also critical for the agri-food processing sector, the economic heavyweight of the FWV area, which is undergoing major changes in response to growing consumer concern for healthier food.

Encouraged by these proactive policies and an increasingly satisfactory commercial offer, agricultural, market-gardening and fruit-growing producers are increasingly turning to biocontrol solutions to combat epidemics and bio-pests. However, there are still a number of obstacles to more widespread adoption. Firstly, they are often more expensive than their synthetic alternatives. Secondly, their efficacy is weaker and less reproducible under practical conditions. Biocontrol products are usually agents with “multisite” modes of action. Their performance therefore depends on complex interactions within the agro-system, between the plant and its environment, and on management methods.
Decision Support Tools (DST) for treatment planning can help overcome these limitations. These digital systems combine phenotyping technologies to detect the onset of epidemics and their spread, and the cross-referencing of this data with other information such as soil history, variety characteristics and local weather predictions to provide a more temporally and spatially targeted risk prediction. This prediction can in turn be used to define more intelligent treatment strategies via alert systems or robotic solutions for local treatments.

However, the development of these DMOs comes up against its own difficulties. The use of models based on increasingly local observations and factors complicates the transposition of results from one European region to another. Phenotyping is thus sensitive to factors such as variety, physico-chemical soil properties and abiotic stresses induced in particular by hydrometry and climate change. The nature and dynamics of the appearance and spread of plant pathogens and pests is also dependent on regional factors.

In this respect, a cross-border approach on the scale of the FWV zone offers numerous advantages and opportunities. Firstly, the major agricultural, vegetable and fruit crops are common to all the basin's slopes. Best practices, methodologies, data and tools can thus be compared and exchanged. The area is also homogeneous in terms of pedoclimatic conditions and the challenges associated with climate change. As a result, growers are faced with the same epidemics and pests. Finally, the FWV zone boasts an ecosystem of leading-edge technological players in the development of sensors and data processing algorithms, as well as the test sites essential to the development of AOD systems. Several alert systems for farmers to help them manage their treatment planning are also already operating in the region.

This is the background to the Trans-e-Bio project, part of the Biocontrol 4.0 portfolio. The aim of the project is to develop a set of digital tools integrated into a decision support tool (DST) adapted to the specificities of biocontrol solutions. The main innovative aspects of the project are the in-situ detection of local risk factors, such as the presence of aerial spores of phytopathogenic agents, local infection foci or insect pests, and their incorporation into predictive models of infection risk adapted to biocontrol solutions, for a better estimate of infection risk from a spatial and temporal point of view.

Farmers, market gardeners and fruit growers will thus be able to better target their treatments and limit the use of synthetic pesticides in favor of biocontrol solutions, all to the benefit of a healthier agri-food chain for the citizens of the FWV zone and far beyond.