Since March 2020 until now Covid-19 sanitary crisis strongly affected the secondments and have strongly impacted our project with mainly:
• Cancellation of almost all secondments and outreach activities,
• Letter of Force Majeure Circumstances (11/03/2020),
• Exchanges with PO (specific requests between March and June 2020),
• Monthly information from coordination to consortium about IPM-4-Citrus evolution
• Decision to apply for a amended GA and a project extension until March 2022.
It is important to report special circumstances affecting our Lebanon partner (USJ) and its consequences into IPM-4-Citrus. For the explosion in Beirut’s freight port, IPM-4-Citrus coordinators have exchanged with USJ. The degradation of social, economic and material situations were impacted Lebanon and especially in Beirut. The different USJ establishments were strongly affected by the blast, but the site of Mansourieh (Biopesticide lab) was lessly affected. The Lebanon and USJ priorities will be to rebuild or to rehabilitee the infrastructure as soon as possible.
In spite of this exceptional situation, our consortium has decided to continue scientific and technical collaborations and to go ahead with our Lebanese colleagues into IPM-4-Citrus with slight adjustment of secondments and scientific actions.
In conclusion, the evolution of IPM-4-Citrus and its environment were progressively implemented over the last 18 months. The new amended GA will integrate all requested modifications for secondments as well as the project extension until March 2022.
