Push–pull technology is an intercropping strategy for controlling agricultural pests by using repellent "push" plants and trap "pull" plants. For example, cereal crops like maize or sorghum are often infested by stem borers. Grasses planted around the perimeter of the crop attract and trap the pests, whereas other plants, like Desmodium, planted between the rows of maize, repel the pests and control the parasitic plant Striga. Push–pull technology was developed at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Kenya in collaboration with Rothamsted Research, UK. and national partners. This technology has been taught to smallholder farmers through collaborations with universities, NGOs and national research organizations. How push–pull works Push–pull technology involves use of behaviour-modifying stimuli to manipulate the distribution and abundance of stemborers and beneficial insects for management of stemborer pests. It is based on in-depth understanding of chemical ecology, agrobiodiversity, plant-plant and insect-plant interactions, and involves intercropping a cereal crop with a repellent intercrop such as Desmodium uncinatum (silverleaf) (push), with an attractive trap plant such as Napier grass (pull) planted as a border crop around this intercrop. Gravid stemborer females are repelled from the main crop and are simultaneously attracted to the trap crop. The push The "push" in the intercropping scheme is provided by the plants that emit volatile chemicals (kairomones) which repel stemborer moths and drive them away from the main crop (maize or sorghum). The most commonly used species of push plants are legumes of the genus Desmodium (e.g. silverleaf Desmodium, D. uncinatum, and greenleaf Desmodium, D. intortum). The Desmodium is planted in between the rows of maize or sorghum, where they emit volatile chemicals (such as (E)-β-ocimene and (E)-4,8-dimethyl-1,3,7-nonatriene) that repel the stemborer moths. These semiochemicals are also produced in grasses such as maize when they are damaged by insect herbivores, which may explain why they are repellent to stemborers. Being a low-growing plant, Desmodium does not interfere with the growth of crops, but can suppress weeds and help improve soil quality by increasing soil organic matter content, fixing nitrogen, and stabilizing soils from erosion. It also serves as a highly nutritious animal feed and effectively suppresses striga weeds through an allelopathic mechanism. Another plant showing good repellent properties is molasses grass (Melinis minutiflora), a nutritious animal feed with tick-repelling and stemborer larval parasitoid attractive properties. The pull The approach relies on a combination of companion crops to be planted around