Plant Quarantine Challenges Under Climate Change Anxiety

The effects of climate change on food safety and plant health represent a relatively new area of study. However, evidence from recent studies is clear: climate change contributes to increased and new food safety & plant health risks as one of several global change factors. This volume analyzes the scientific understanding of the relationship between climate change, food safety, plant pests, plant diseases, and trade. It identifies and discusses four key areas for future policy consideration: risk assessment, SPS capacity in developing countries, climate change resilience, and basic research challenges. We must effectively communicate the impacts of climate change on plant health and build the capacity of national plant protection organizations. More importantly, we need to mobilize resources that will help build stronger national phytosanitary systems that can prevent the spread of plant pests, thereby protecting our food sources and environment, and facilitating safe trade.

The present volume is an asset for plant quarantine personnel working in the field, agricultural university students, plant health workers, farmers doing agriculture, plant & seed traders, and all those who use agricultural produce and products. The book is a useful resource for students and professional plant pathologists, entomologists, and plant breeders because it summarizes current knowledge and suggests new research directions. It is also suitable for ecologists & researchers working on crop protection, climate change, and pest control.

Kamel A. Abd-Elsalam, Ph.D., is currently a Research Professor at the Plant Pathology Research Institute, Agricultural Research Center, Giza, Egypt. Dr. Kamel's research interests include developing and improving plant biosecurity diagnostic tools, understanding fungal pathogen genomes, and creating eco-friendly hybrid nanomaterials for controlling toxigenic fungi and plant diseases as well as applications in agroecosystems. Kamel earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Plant Pathology from Christian Albrechts University of Kiel (Germany) and Suez Canal University (Egypt). In 2008, he was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the same institution. Dr. Kamel served as a visiting associate professor at Mae Fah Luang University in Thailand, the Institute of Microbiology at TUM in Germany, the Laboratory of Phytopathology at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, and the Plant Protection Department at Sassari University in Italy. He has published 26 books related to nanobiotechnology applications in agriculture and plant protection with major publishing houses such as Springer, Taylor & Francis, and Elsevier. Since 2019, he has served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Elsevier book series "Nanobiotechnology for Plant Protection" and as the Series Editor for "Applications of Genome Modified Plants and Microbes in Food and Agriculture." Additionally, he has been an active member of the Elsevier Advisory Panel since 2020, providing feedback and suggestions to improve Elsevier's products and services. Published more than 264 scientific research articles in international and regional specialized journals with high impact factors, and has an h-index of 46, an i-10 index of 140, and over 7774 citations. He served as a Guest Editor for the Journal of Fungi, Plants, and Microorganisms, and as a Review Editor for Frontiers in Genomic Assay Technology, Agrochemicals, and Plant Nano Biology. He was ranked in the top 2% of the most influential scientists in the world in nanobiotechnology for 2021, 2022, and 2023 by Elsevier and Stanford University. In 2014, he was awarded the Federation of Arab Scientific Research Councils Prize for excellent scientific research in biotechnology (fungal genomics), ranking first. Additionally, he received the Egyptian State Award for Agricultural Scientific Excellence from ASRT, Egypt in 2022 with a silver medal.

Salah M. Abdel-Momen received his Ph.D. in Plant Pathology from Texas A&M University through a US-AID grant and completed a postdoctoral program at the University of Maryland Department of Molecular Genetics. He returned to Egypt to work as a researcher at the Plant Pathology Research Institute, Agricultural Research Center, where he helped establish a laboratory for molecular plant pathology with colleagues, which assisted senior and junior colleagues in manipulating molecular tools and techniques in plant disease diagnosis and plant microbe interaction. As he continued to work at the Agricultural Research Center, he was responsible for a variety of tasks, including conducting plant disease research and overseeing multiple master’s theses and Ph.D. dissertations until he was elevated to the level of professor. As a trainee or trainer, he took part in many programs at the American University in Cairo and Chicago State University in the fields of advanced management, report writing, technology evaluation and transfer, and intellectual property rights. This is in addition to other extension and on-farm training programs on various crops in most Egyptian governorates. Such activities provided him with expertise and a broad view of agricultural challenges in Egypt, allowing him to become the editor-in-chief of the Egyptian Journal of Agricultural Research and president of the Egyptian Society of Plant Pathology. This experience also aided his appointment to several administrative positions, including Deputy Director of the Plant Pathology Research Institute for Training and Extension, Vice President of the Agricultural Research Center, President of the Agricultural Research Center, and the Egypt’s minister of agriculture and lands reclamation from 2012 to 2013. Serving in these positions exposed and enabled him to get a broad understanding of agricultural problems and output, as well as to participate in plans for developing and sustaining agriculture.