The U.S. and China, the world’s largest agricultural producers, pose the greatest threat to other countries when it comes to spreading invasive pests and pathogens, according to a new report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The developing world, and sub-Saharan Africa specifically, is the most vulnerable to the economic damage such species can inflict.
“Invasive species are a major cause of crop loss and can adversely affect food security,” says the report. “In the United States alone, crop and forest production losses from invasive insects and pathogens have been estimated at almost $40 billion per year. With increased globalization and connectedness via world trade, the threat from invasive species arriving to countries in which they were previously absent is expected to increase.” In some parts of Africa, where the economy is largely driven by agriculture, invasive species could deplete more than 10 percent of a country’s GDP.
The study, which included 124 countries, is the first to analyze the overall threat of 1,297 known pest species. “Countries with diverse commodities and/or large trade volumes”—namely the U.S. and China—“are likely the greatest source of invasive pests and pathogens, whereas countries with developing economies likely play less of a role as sources of invasion,” the report states.
China hosts 56 percent of the worldwide list of invasive pests and pathogens, making it the largest global threat, followed by the U.S., which hosts 52 percent of the invasive species. The study found that India, Brazil, Japan, Germany, France and Republic of Korea also had a lot of the invasive pests and pathogens.