Chapter 14). In order to ensure the accep-
tance of these guidelines by their members,
end-users and scientists, ANBP chose to
develop the guidelines using the process
provided by the American Society for
Testing and Materials (ASTM). ASTM is a
not-for-profit organization that provides a
forum for the development and publication
of voluntary consensus standards for materi-
als, products, systems and services.
In October 2001, the IBMA and ANBP
organized their first joint meeting in
Washington, DC, USA, and discussed the
future alignment of their efforts in develop-
ing quality control methods and standards.
Future of Guideline Development
During the Washington 2001 meeting, it
became clear that it is very important to keep
the current efforts of both IBMA and ANBP
as much aligned as possible, both in gener-
ally accepted generic testing methods and
quality standards and in the layout and com-
munication of the guidelines. Furthermore, it
was felt that the link with the scientific com-
munity is very important for acceptance of
the guidelines by scientists and regulators,
for the quality of the developed methods
and for developing new methods. It was felt
that this would be best achieved through
reinforcing close links with the IOBC
through the global IOBC working group
‘Arthropod Mass-rearing and Quality
Control’ (AMRQC).
From 1992 onwards, most quality control
methods have been developed through close
collaboration between industry and acade-
mic researchers. This collaboration allows
the development of scientifically sound
methodologies, while evaluating and vali-
dating them under practical circumstances
by commercial producers. This collaboration
has also ensured that the developed method-
ologies are now broadly accepted by both
the scientific world and the whole biocontrol
industry. Currently, it is mostly the produc-
ers of natural enemies that are refining and
optimizing the quality control guidelines
and developing new guidelines in the frame-
work of the IBMA.
Future work will be focused on the fol-
lowing:- Developing testing guidelines and stan-
dards for additional natural enemies. For
all the major natural enemies for green-
house use, quality control guidelines are
now in place. However, for several nat-
ural enemies, quality control guidelines
still need to be developed and/or vali-
dated. This includes beneficials that are
typically used in outdoor crops, such as
citrus, olives, almonds and maize, or ben-
eficials that are used for the biological
control of filth flies, urban pests and stor-
age pests. - Optimizing and validating existing guide-
lines and standards through ring testing.
Repeatability of the test methods is very
important. The test methods need to be
sufficiently robust to ensure that perform-
ing the tests on the same batch of natural
enemies by different experienced quality
control technicians yields the same
results. Also, the agreed quality standards
need to be realistic. Therefore, proposals
for quality standards always need to be
validated through rigorous ring testing by
multiple producers. - Optimizing sample numbers and sam-
pling sizes to ensure statistically sound
tests. There are currently no clearly
agreed standards for the number of sam-
ples to be taken from a batch. Also, the
number of subsamples and sample sizes
require critical analysis of their statistical
soundness. Because most methods are
very laborious, a very pragmatic
approach is currently used. The optimal
number of samples required for quantity
control will largely depend on the stan-
dard deviation of the packaging process
that is used. - Developing less labour-intensive meth-
ods. The methods that are currently used
are rather labour-intensive. Developing
less labour-intensive methods could
reduce the costs involved in quality con-
trol, allow the performance of more tests,
enable more samples and larger sample
sizes to be taken and make counting
results available more quickly. Recent
Development of Quality Control in Europe 217