§ Mr. MaddenTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to his answer of 2 MayOfficial Report, column 141, when the study funded by the Overseas Development Administration on cotton pest management, is expected to be completed; if he will list the preliminary conclusions of the study; and what evaluation he has made of reports from Natural Research Institute staff working in Pakistan. [23134]
§ Mr. BaldryThe study is expected to be completed by early July. Preliminary conclusions are not available. The study will cover all the factors affecting the cotton crop in Pakistan, and not only pest management.
ODA funded research carried out by the Natural Resources Institute is monitored by ODA's renewable natural resources research strategy monitoring panel. Reports of earlier phases of NRI's work in Pakistan, together with information from other sources, were the basis for the decision to focus its current research into cotton on the use of pheromones in controlling cotton pests, and on pesticide resistance. Pheromone research undertaken by NRI in Pakistan and Egypt is currently the subject of an ODA evaluation study.