UPSCALE: Upscaling the benefits of push-pull technology for sustainable agricultural intensification in East Africa

Push–pull is an environmentally-friendly cropping strategy for controlling agricultural insect pests that uses repellent crops to drive pests from the main crop (the “push”) and trap crops to “pull” them. The goal of push-pull systems is to harness the benefits of biodiversity to increase food security and resilience to climate change, and reduce the negative environmental impacts of agriculture. To date, push-pull technology has mostly been applied to cereal cropping systems in the sub-Saharan region of East Africa. The European Union-funded UPSCALE project aims to increase the applicability of push–pull systems beyond cereal crops into other cultivation systems, and to expand the adoption of push-pull from the field scale to farm, landscape, and regional scales. By determining the factors influencing the success of push–pull across scales, the project will enable the targeted implementation and prediction of push–pull effectiveness and resilience under current and future climate conditions. By harnessing the benefits of push–pull technology across crops and scales, UPSCALE will promote the design and widespread implementation of climate-smart and environmentally-friendly food production in East Africa and beyond.