The future of effective fruit fly management likely requires a more systematic approach where each country and region develops measures or actions that collectively provide the level of protection needed for specific pests or diseases.

The potential benefit of pursuing a systems approach is the flexibility to consider the frequency of fruit flies in a specific location. Systems approaches could also allow exports without expensive, time-consuming or damaging treatments recognising the cumulative benefit of the multiple control efforts used by industry government and the community

However, developing and approving systems approaches isn’t necessarily a straightforward process. As there are two or more points where fruit flies are being controlled, there may be increased costs or complexity in the pest management system. These issues need to be weighed up to compare the merits of a systems approach versus a single-point treatment.