The Association of Banana Producers Organizations of the Canary Islands (Asprocan) has launched the Guide to Biological Control and Biodiversity in the Cultivation of Canary Island Bananas, "Platano de Canarias", which compiles the findings of the 'Canary Island Bananas and the Challenges 2030' project. The project carried out in collaboration with the Canary Institute of Agricultural Research (ICIA), aims to promote the biological control and biodiversity of crops on the islands. The project has been funded by the 'Investigo Program', which supports hiring unemployed young people to develop research and innovation initiatives within the framework of the Recovery,

Transformation and Resilience Plan - Next Generation EU. The project has implemented various initiatives in the last year to offer practical solutions to producers that allow them to move towards sustainability and meet the challenges proposed by the 'From Farm to Table' strategy established by the European Union. The 'Canary Island Bananas and the Challenges 2030 project has allowed a detailed evaluation of the biological control tools currently available for cultivation to adapt the strategy to operational conditions. Biodiversity has played a leading role in this initiative, being vital in attracting natural enemies present spontaneously and providing refuge to the released biological control organisms. Pest control through biological control is based on living organisms that depend on the climatic conditions of each farm and the level of pests present, and therefore, requires a deep understanding of population dynamics to understand its operation. Thus, studies conducted in other regions or crops are not extrapolatable, given the particularities of banana cultivation in the Canary Islands.

For this reason, detailed work has been carried out to characterize the action of different natural enemies and the effectiveness of varying release methods, depending on the climatic conditions and pest pressure in specific cultivation areas on our Islands. All the results of the tests have been reflected in the edition of the Guide to Biological Control and Biodiversity in the Cultivation of Canary Island Bananas, published by ASPROCAN, where the fundamentals of biological control and functional biodiversity are presented. In addition, the guide includes the files of the different natural enemies available for pest control and the plant species that can be included to contribute to biodiversity in Canary Island Banana farms.