Invasive pests set back the global economy some USD 220 bn on an annual basis, ruining some 40% of global crops each year on average, according to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Bark beetles and red palm weevils (RPWs) ravage plantations and eat through a variety of trees, delivering a dual blow to global food security and natural carbon offsetting. Their economic toll has been more widely felt over recent years as global warming hikes the metabolic rate of a host of invasive insects, driving them to reproduce faster, research by the World Economic Forum notes.

It’s costing MENA bns: Pests cost governments in our region some USD 2.5 bn back in 2021, estimated to grow at an annual CAGR of 5.2% between now and 2026, according to Market Data Forecast. Especially destructive is the RPW — the most lethal pest for date palm groves — which affects 40 different types of palm trees. Originally indigenous to southeast Asia, it has been gnawing USD mns off of MENA’s collective GDP since its arrival to regional shores in the mid-1980s, according to research by FAO. GCC-based farmers spend between USD 1.74-8.69 mn when just 1-5% of their plantations are infested with RPWs, respectively, FAO notes.

Why are RPWs hard to find in the first place? Female RPWs lay up to 300 eggs within the trunk of a palm tree, all of which hatch within two days at the earliest and five at the most. In the larvae stage, which lasts for 55 days, RPWs burrow deeper into the trunk to sustain themselves. They then enter the pupal stage of development and abandon their host for new prey, according to research by Ecomena.

AI can help: Abu Dhabi-based agritech startup Palmear pairs AI and big data with audio engineering to detect a host of pests including RPWs. Palmear’s team has developed an algorithm fed with intel on the sounds and behaviors of a variety of invasive pests and portable detectors — powered with AI and connected to a mobile app — to identify trees and pinpoint spots infested with red palm weevils and other lethal insects, CEO and founder Zeid Sinokrot tells Enterprise Climate. The team has also developed hardware to embed inside trees to extract the audio that enables pest detection.

How it works: Farmers can insert a needle-like plug extended through Palmear’s detection device to scan the tree for pests. Within 50 seconds, the AI-powered app loaded onto your smartphone recognizes if this tree is healthy or not. If it’s infested, the application glows in red, sends a notification, and tags the affected location on the map, before the RPWs abandon host trees to feed off new ones.

Big savings: Palmear’s offering enables farmers to zero in on which trees to treat and how much treatment and pesticides to apply, Sinokrot tells us, noting that in past years the tech has reduced pesticide use between 40-50% across several of their monitoring projects in and beyond MENA. “A very important aspect of our development phase was understanding how scalable our technology first would be in different regions. In order to answer that, we had to travel to different countries including the GCC, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia, to understand if the pest is behaving the same way in varying environments. We came to find that the pest actually behaves in a very similar manner all over the world, with the only notable differences being attributable to warmer temperatures increasing RPWs’ life-cycles in hotter climes,” Sinokrot explains.

And it’s boosting emissions offsetting: The tech keeps trees healthy and offsets some 8.4k tons of CO2 equivalent, Sinokrot says. For each palm tree saved from RPW infestation through early detection and effective treatment, some 120 kg of CO2 is mitigated.

MENA countries are jumping on the tech: Jordan’s Inspectors and Plant Protection Agency at the country’s Agriculture Ministry is currently using Palmear’s tech on a national scale, and the company is collaborating with several GCC countries in the pilot phase of testing, Sinokrot says.

Expansion plans: Palmear is in the middle of its seed stage fundraising round and is seeking interest from GCC, EU and American VC tech funds, Sinokrot told Enterprise. The company’s lead investor — an undisclosed MENA-based corporation — is one of the world’s leading agriculture companies. The company is also interested in listing carbon removal credits in voluntary carbon markets in MENA and beyond, Sinokrot adds.