Razbio Awarded Funding for Innovative Pest Monitoring Trap development
Razbio Limited has been awarded funding from Innovate UK for our innovative project focused on developing advanced insect pest monitoring technologies. This funding will propel our efforts to create and optimize automated traps for pest identification and quantification, significantly enhancing sustainable food security.
Innovative Pest Monitoring Technology
Insect pests pose a serious threat to food crops, impacting food security globally. Effective monitoring of these pests is crucial to mitigate the damage they cause. However, traditional monitoring methods require specialist knowledge and intensive farm visits which can be prohibitively expensive for many farmers. Recent advancements in computing technology and image analysis present an opportunity to revolutionize pest monitoring. Our semi-automated tool, capable of identifying thrips—a major insect pest for various crops—utilizes cloud-based technology to store and analyse insect data, eliminating the need for manual expertise and frequent field visits.
Global Impact
To fully leverage our technology, we aim to test and optimize our traps in an agricultural settings that provide robust field conditions for product evaluation. We have selected Pakistan, one of the top ten agricultural countries of the world, which also represents a significant emerging market for our products and services. Our technology will be focused on monitoring and managing the cotton whitefly and mango fruitfly which are two major insect pests in Pakistan. This project will assess the feasibility of optimising and further developing our pest monitoring technology to meet the demands of Pakistan’s agricultural sector. Successful implementation will open new opportunities for technology and business expansion in this emerging market.