The Real IPM Company (Kenya) Ltd has become the first company based outside the UK and Republic of Ireland to receive the Institute of Horticulture’s (IoH) Norah Stucken Award.
Based in Thika, Kenya, the integrated pest management company was presented with the award at the IoH’s AGM, held at Writtle College on September 29. Lin Blunt accepted the 2007 accolade, which recognises the part Real IPM has played in providing commercial growers with a unique insight into pesticide use, on behalf of the company’s joint managing directors, Dr Henry Wainwright and Louise Labuschagne. Blunt, pictured, is a former colleague of Dr Wainwright, when he was Professor of Commercial Horticulture at Writtle College.
“We are immensely proud to receive the award. We’re conscious of being the first recipient based overseas,” said Blunt on behalf of the company. “It’s a great encouragement that the IoH recognises that horticulture is a truly global affair, and that what happens in countries like Kenya influences northern Europe and what appears on its supermarket shelves.”
Real IPM was set up in 2003 to encourage and provide growers with the necessary management skills and resources to produce crops without over-reliance on pesticides. Dr Wainwright and Labuschagne both have extensive experience in consultancy and the developments of IPM protocols for fruit, vegetable and flower crops in Europe and Africa.
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