“Strict” Border Restrictions are not enough to curb Pests and Diseases!! Insane as it sounds, that is the reality of things. Pests and Diseases management has been part of scientific discussions since time immemorial with regard to agricultural production systems. With this year’s conference theme, “Agricultural development within the rural-urban continuum”, pest and diseases was not left behind, and this brought great discussion among scientist from all over the globe. Stephan Winter Leibniz-Institute, Braunschweig, Germany Amazing interactions between plant viruses, their vectors and their hosts plants was reported by Stephan Winter, a virologist from Leibniz-Institute, Braunschweig, Germany. According to Winter, plant viruses can travel long distance as far as United State from Africa, to Europe. This has been made possible by international trade of planting materials, vegetables and cut flowers, enabling pests and diseases of economic importance to cross strict boarders. Generally, several driving factors have been found to contribute to this menace, scientist are committed to find solutions for the control and containment of pests and diseases.These include, cultural measures, biological control of the pest, use of tolerant crop varieties against plant diseases among others.

Session: Plant Production Systems within the rural-urban continuum Chair: Anthony Whitbread, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany With the ever rising effects of climate change, adaptation of crops and advanced scientific research at genetic levels, are facing major challenges due to the segregation effect on the unstable crop genotypes. The session of Plant Production systems covered a broad area dealing mainly with agricultural production, from crop protection aspects to crop modeling to combat climate change, with the aim of creating a sustainable agricultural system. The lead paper, by Manuel Tamo, an insect ecologist from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), presented a crop protection aspect specifically focusing on Biological Control. Manuele Tamo, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Benin.