Abstract
Adopting the One-Health approach means reconciling all domains of health (human, public, animal, plant, and environmental) while considering consilience. Applied to crop protection, in particular the substitution of a synthetic pesticide using a botanical product, e.g. an aqueous solution or an essential oil, the first challenge is to choose a plant species, a chemotype, or a mixture of plants whose effects on pest or disease have been scientifically demonstrated in the literature. The adopted botanical can range from a local wild plant to allochthonous cultivated plants. Another challenge is to ensure that this product is less harmful to human, animal, and environmental health than the pesticide. For example, despite the well-known beneficial effects of neem against many pests, it has a spermicidal effect, requiring precautions in its use. In addition, the impact on environmental health or an ecological service as the natural regulation of the pests by their natural enemies, is rarely considered. Therefore, the aim of our work is to help researchers and technicians to tackle these challenges. The method adopted is based on the construction of a knowledge-based system named Knomana. This system includes a knowledge base, which brings together results presented in the scientific literature on the use of plant-based products for animal, plant, human, and environmental health. The base currently contains 48,000 use results covering 2,800 plant species to control 740 species of pests, including vectors. To navigate and explore this knowledge base, analysis tools, e.g. the RCAviz editor, have been developed based on Formal Context Analysis, a data mining method derived from artificial intelligence. While computer scientists, entomologists, microbiologists, and agronomists are currently carrying out construction of this system, its development need collaboration with pharmacists, veterinarians, epidemiologists, ecologists, etc. in order to fill the knowledge base, to cross disciplines and to combine knowledge on the plant usages resulting of a better choice of a plant for the different health.