How does plant health contribute to a sustainable bioeconomy and the One Health approach? CITRUSBUSTERS carried that question to an international hybrid event in healthcare BEHEALTH 2026 in Bucharest.

Plant health rarely sits on a One Health agenda. In Bucharest, it did. CITRUSBUSTERS used the floor at BEHEALTH 2026 to make a specific case: a citrus disease is not an isolated agricultural problem. It is a biosecurity threat, a bioeconomy question, and a rural-resilience issue running through the same supply chain. Huanglongbing (HLB) and Citrus Black Spot don’t just damage orchards. They move trade routes, shrink rural incomes, and reshape what reaches the processor.

That is why the project chose to speak in a room full of healthcare, policy and sustainability professionals rather than plant scientists. The audiences that shape European preparedness policy don’t typically hear from agronomists. CITRUSBUSTERS wanted them to.

Connecting Plant Health, Bioeconomy and One Health

BEHEALTH 2026 is the 9th International Hybrid Event in Healthcare, hosted in Bucharest from 19 to 22 October and organised by ROHEALTH. The programme covers circular economy and bioeconomy, humanitarian crisis management, and research and innovation.

CITRUSBUSTERS was invited to the panel “Bioeconomy and One Health: Practical Solutions for Humanitarian Crisis Management”, moderated by Mariana Stan (ROHEALTH), with speakers from research, industry, policymaking and sustainable development. The project was represented in person by PEDAL Consulting.

The CITRUSBUSTERS message in Bucharest

During the panel, CITRUSBUSTERS highlighted three important aspects of its work:

• Biosecurity through prevention: Early detection, sustainable disease management and vector control, built into the system before an outbreak reaches a commercial scale.
• Circular bioeconomy, built into the science: citrus peel residues from the juice industry are being converted into bioactive compounds that activate plant immunity. Waste becomes defence.
• Multi-actor delivery: Researchers, growers, industry and advisors in the same conversation. The solution is co-designed from the start, not translated afterwards.

Why visibility is strategy, not decoration

For a project like CITRUSBUSTERS, showing up matters as much as publishing. European biosecurity policy, humanitarian preparedness and bioeconomy frameworks are built in rooms like this one. Being at the table is how plant health earns its place in them.

BEHEALTH 2026 took CITRUSBUSTERS beyond the agricultural audience and into direct conversation with healthcare, sustainability and policy actors. Every event where the project speaks adds another connection, another policymaker who recognises the name, another partner for the next proposal. Communication isn’t a side-activity, it’s how science becomes practice and reaches the people who need it.