Invasive plant diseases that harm commercial agriculture threaten food security. Typically, scientists look to prevent spread and start research projects to find the best management strategy when an invasive plant disease arrives. This top-down approach often does not include how individuals or on-the-ground organizations could contribute. Bottom-up approaches involve the self-organization of communities to fight invasive plant diseases or the combination of scientists working with communities.
In a 2021 research paper, UC Davis Plant Pathology Professor Neil McRoberts writes “The challenge is how to design plant health institutions that effectively deal with the spatial and temporal dynamics of plant diseases, while staying aligned with the preferences, values and needs of affected societies.” McRoberts’s paper discusses guidelines that could lead scientists in government and university institutions to better work with communities to fight invasive plant diseases.
Bottom-up approaches can be incorporated using design principles first created by Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom in her work on community management of fisheries, forests, and watersheds. In this case, using Ostrom’s design principles to prevent the spread and harm of Huanglongbing (HLB), a deadly plant disease of citrus in California. Knowing that a traditional top-down approach where state and federal regulators impose quarantines and other measures would not be effective, leaders in the California citrus industry lobbied the State Assembly and were successful in getting AB281 passed in 2009. The bill established a partnership between the industry and the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) to manage invasive citrus diseases such as Huanglongbing. The partnership is built around a committee of growers who make the decisions and manage the budget, which is a mixture of industry, state, and federal funds.
Recognizing that the committee would need expert help interpreting the data being collected by the disease eradication program, McRoberts collaborated with the Citrus Research Board to form the Data Analysis and Tactical Operations Center (DATOC) in 2016. DATOC uses data and analytics to deliver solutions for Huanglongbing and generates science-based information to guide policy.
Worldwide institutions battling Huanglongbing and other invasive diseases have naturally incorporated some of Ostrom’s design principles into their programs. McRoberts suspects they have because Ostrom’s design principles provide a framework for action that increases the chances of success. Huanglongbing in California has progressed slowly compared with other regions and nine years after it was first detected, commercial citrus in the state is still free of the disease. Industry, the scientific community, the CDFA, county administrations, and city councils are working together to quickly detect new finds and slow the spread. Despite this success, McRoberts concludes that more work is needed to determine the barriers to wider participation at the local level. Asian citrus psyllid, the insect that vectors Huanglongbing, is established in southern California where collective action has been less than even.
McRoberts and colleagues have observed that collective action by individuals and local organizations with scientific and governmental institutions can improve protection from an invasive plant disease. McRoberts predicts that the more Ostrom’s design principles are used in designing responses, the better able state and federal agencies will be able to engage individuals and local organizations. Slowing the spread of invasive plant disease—as seen in California with Huanglongbing—can be the result of their success. Additionally, since the design principles are general, it is anticipated that they will apply to many plant health threats and help to achieve food security.
McRoberts’ article: Institutional approaches for plant health provision as a collective action problem. Food Security 13, 273–290 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-020-01133-9
