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Natural Enemies of True Fruit Flies(Tephritidae)

Published: Tue, 04 Dec 2012, 14:09
Last updated: Mon, 17 Feb 2020, 09:09
Fruit flies in the family Tephritidae are high profile insects among commercial fruit and vegetable growers, marketing exporters,government regulatory agencies, and the scientific community. Locally, producers face huge losses without some management scheme to control fruit fly populations. At the national and international level, plant protection agencies strictly regulate the movement of potentially infested products. Consumers throughout the world demand high quality, blemish-free produce. Partly to satisfy these demands, the costs to local, state and national governments are quite high and increasing as world trade, and thus risk, increases. Thus, fruit flies impose a considerable resource tax on participants at every level, from producer to shipper to the importing state and, ultimately, to the consumer. (McPheron & Steck, 1996) Indeed, in the United States alone, the running costs per year to APHIS, Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ), (the federal Agency responsible) for maintenance of trapping systems, laboratories, and identification are in excess of US$27 million per year and increasing. This figure only accounts for a fraction of total costs throughout the country, as State, County and local governments put in their share as well as the local industry affected. If a emergency program is mounted against some exotic fruit fly invasion, the costs to PPQ increase again, and may be as much as an additional $20 million per year. An exceptional program, such as the Medfly eradication Program in California in 1980-82 required the expenditures of $100 million for this one program alone, over roughly 3 years, for all parties involved (Schribner, 1983). Costs in other areas of the world are no less. For Japan, the cost of eradication of the Oriental Fruit Fly from its south-western islands in the 1980’s was US$32 million (White and Elson-Harris, 1992).
Resource provide by:
  • NPPO of USA
Organization providing resource: United States Department of Agriculture Marketing and Regulatory Programs Animal a
Author/Editor name and address: Jeffrey N. L. Stibick, United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Plant Protection and Quarantine
Type of contact: NPPO
Tags:
  • Specific pest control manual
Submitted by: USDA-APHIS

Documents:
Natural_Enemies_of_True_Fruit_Flies.pdf