Looking back at EUFAWREADY's first webinar

09.02.2026

On 29 January 2026, the first EUFAWREADY community-building webinar, “Maize matters: Europe gets FAW-ready”, was successfully held as the project’s inaugural stakeholder engagement event. The webinar marked the formal launch of the EUFAWREADY stakeholder community and aimed to introduce the project, raise awareness of the Fall Armyworm (FAW) threat in Europe, and gather initial feedback on the development of guidelines and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) tools.

The event attracted strong interest, with 90 registrations and 84 active participants. Attendees were predominantly from the research and academic community, alongside representatives from phytosanitary services, biocontrol industries, knowledge brokers, plant breeding companies, and a smaller number of farmers. The agenda combined global and European FAW perspectives with a structured presentation of the project’s three operational pillars: LEARN, DETECT, MANAGE and dedicated sessions focused on stakeholder engagement and community-building pathways.

As an introductory webinar, the session primarily engaged scientifically oriented stakeholders, establishing a solid foundation for broader outreach. It validated clear interest in the project’s objectives and confirmed the relevance of coordinated European preparedness efforts. At the same time, discussions highlighted the importance of ensuring that future webinars increasingly emphasise practical outputs, visual knowledge products, and targeted engagement of farmers and advisors as the project progresses.

The webinar represents the first step in building a collaborative European network prepared to anticipate, detect and manage FAW risks, reinforcing EUFAWREADY’s commitment to structured stakeholder engagement under its Learn–Detect–Manage framework.

All webinar recordings and presentations for each session are available here: