Why Millions of Flies Are Being Shipped from Israel to Croatia?

A batch of 380 million infertile flies was sent from Israel to Croatia to combat fruit fly populations damaging the citrus orchards in this country.

Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu is growing flies which underwent sterilization using a radioactive process with the supervision of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission.

They were spread in orchards along the Bosnian border upon landing at the airport in the seaside city of Split. The reason for shipping these barren flies is that they act to push out the harmful ones from the orchards.

BioBee Company at Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu devises natural biological methods to fight pests in agriculture to decrease the reliance on harmful pesticides.

 

Source: The Jerusalem Post, published on December 2, 2014.