An apple a day keeps the doctor away, so the saying goes. FAO, jointly with Turkey’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and other local partners, is helping to ensure Turkish consumers get their daily apple free of both pests and pesticides.

Sustainable and safe fruit production that fosters economic, social, and environmental sustainability has a special importance in 2021 – declared by the United Nations the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables.

But while plant health is essential for crop production, human health, and the environment, according to FAO statistics, the use of pesticides is increasing globally. Considering its negative impacts, it is important to reduce dependency on pesticides in agriculture, and to address the challenges such dependency causes. To this end, FAO supports sustainable crop production and provides alternatives to pesticides through the project ‘Lifecycle Management of Pesticides and Disposal of POPs Pesticides in Central Asian countries and Turkey’, which is funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

As part of the project, and despite COVID-19 restrictions, in 2020 FAO carried out an experimental trial together with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s Fruit Research Institute, during which the benefits of low pesticide use in apple production through integrated pest management were compared to those of conventional apple production.