Risk assessment of new fruit flies invasion and cost-benefit analysis of control measures for fruit flies on the Azores archipelago.

Objectivo

The final output of this project will be a tool for policymaking support in order to protect the Azorean fruits production and assure its sustainability.
The outcomes of this project are fully within the goals for the Agriculture sector of the Research and Innovation Strategy for Smart Specialisation (RIS3) program.

The scope of this project makes it as an important contribute to downgrade the weakness point of Civil Society interactions of University-Company-Government identified in the swot analysis of the IRS3 program. In addition, this project takes the opportunity and the strength of the Unique Geographic characteristics of the Azorean Islands, as well as the strength of the competences of the University of the Azores to provide an important tool of economic knowledge and therefore upgrading and improving current policy instruments by creating synergies and improving effectiveness.

Despite only one type of action is allowed to be selected in this application form, the outcomes of this project are fully integrated in any of the type of actions within strategic priority of the Agriculture. However, the main impact of this project in first instance is all about fostering collaborative relationships and promoting innovative strategies to protect the regional fruit production. In this project, there will be collaborative relationships with the Regional Directorate of Agriculture, fruit producers and growers. Another important collaborative relationship is with the main general population.
One of the main visions of RIS3 for the Azores is the ability to produce, transform and commercialize diversified products as well as the adoption of sustainable environmental practices. For this to happen, it is important to make some policies changes to protect and increase productivity and quality of the regional products, and there is where current application comes in. Present application intends to conduct a Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) by considering several possible scenarios to control the Medfly populations and other potential invasive fruit flies on the Azores Archipelago. However, to achieve this main goal, it is necessary first to achieve other objectives. One requirement for CBA is the establishment of the geographic scope because fruit flies know no political boundaries and it is necessary to calculate the real economic impact of any fruit fly present in the Azorean Archipelago or that poses a threat of invasion and of establishing a local population. One can only perform a CBA by having beforehand the real economic impact and only afterwards, following economic models to extrapolate to other possible scenarios. Has a result of the recent publication of Law No. 26/2013 of April 11, which transposed into the national law the European Directive 2009/128/EC, theoretically the objective to calculate variable costs per area can become easier to achieve.