Free resource to help farmers fight crop pests and diseases

The Knowledge Bank provides clear, actionable treatment advice on the most prevalent pests and diseases
© CABI

The science and agriculture organisation, CABI, has launched a free online resource designed to help extension workers, government organisations, researchers and farmers in developing countries diagnose, treat and prevent plant pests and diseases.

"The right information really can change people's lives," explains Roger Day, CABI's Regional Coordinator for Plantwise in Africa. "The Plantwise Knowledge Bank provides this information, helping people lose less of their crops to pests and diseases, and enabling them better to support themselves, their families and their communities. With the support of the Knowledge Bank, Plantwise can benefit food security, support farmers and ultimately, improve lives."

The Knowledge Bank provides clear, actionable treatment advice on the most prevalent pests and diseases. In Kenya for example, Black Aphids, or 'ume' in Kikuyu, feed on field beans and have had a devastating effect on yields. The Knowledge Bank provides a simple factsheet giving diagnosis and treatment advice for the Aphids. It suggests spraying the plants with soap - a simple, but remarkably effective treatment which kills off the Aphids and leaves the crop unharmed. The Knowledge Bank also contains information on 22 different pests and diseases that attack coffee in Rwanda and 58 pests and diseases that attack cocoa in Ghana, providing country specific advice on diagnosis, treatment and prevention in order to mitigate crop losses that can devastate farms and ruin livelihoods.

Diagnostic tools enable users to diagnose plant problems based on pictures of symptoms, and country specific homepages mean that information shown is tailored to the user's location. The Knowledge Bank is already being used to support Plantwise 'Plant Clinics', where 'plant doctors', trained by CABI, provide diagnosis and treatment support to farmers from their local area.

Pilot for protecting against counterfeit crop protection products

Anecdotal evidence collected across all agribusiness sectors in 12 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa indicates that counterfeit agricultural inputs account for more than 30 percent of all retail agro-input purchases. 

Unscrupulous entrepreneurs produce counterfeit pesticide packaging and fill it with inert product, sell inferior grain as quality seed and palm gravel off as fertilizer.  Neither law enforcement agencies nor Ministries of Agriculture nor the private sector have been able to make any real headway in reducing this illegal trading which, according to Felix Jumbe, Executive Director of the Seed Trade Association of Malawi, “makes the poor poorer.”

Felix Jumbe

With support from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) through theCommon Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), IFDC is helping eliminate counterfeit crop protection products (CPPs). IFDC staff members have designed a simple counter-measure and, in partnership with CropLife Africa Middle East (CLAME) and CropLife Uganda, IFDC is launching a pilot program to scientifically test the effectiveness of the methodology. CLAME, a member of CropLife International, is a regional federation representing the plant science industry and a network of national associations in 30 countries in Africa and the Middle East. Read more

African Dryland Alliance for Pesticidal Plant Technologies

ADAPPT is a project supported by a European Union grant through the ACP Science and Technology Programme to establish a network of scientists and agricultural technicians, from NGOs, agricultural institutes, ministries and universities from Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom with a focus on pesticidal plants* as environmentally benign and safer alternatives to synthetic pesticides. The specific partners are listed on the Partners page of the website. ADAPPT will:

• Establish an intra-African network with linkages to international networks,
• Build capacity to assess research needs to facilitate the formulation and implementation of research policies associated with pesticidal plants and to prepare and submit project proposals for new funding opportunities, and
• Enhance the research capacity and incentive of the network partners and so increase the quality and impact of research results and disseminated outputs.

Grant: FED/2009/217064

Project duration: 36 months(from 10/11/2009 to 09/11/2012)

EC funding: EUR 989,204.00

Total budget: EUR 1,163,769.00

BPDB: Bio-Pesticides DataBase

The University of Hertfordshire announced the launch of a new database on biopesticides which complements the existing Pesticide properties Database and the Veterinary Substance database. The new system currently holds around 450 records in biocontrol agents ranging from naturally derived substances to insect predators.

Biopesticides can be described as crop protection products that have been derived from natural sources. They include naturally occurring chemicals, pheromones, bacteria, fungi and insect predators. Whilst in many instances the environmental risks of these substances is considered to be less than that of the more traditional chemical pesticides this is not always the case. Data to support risk assessments is scarce and currently there is no single, reliable comprehensive data source.

The University of Hertfordshire’s is a respected source of data for both the more traditional agricultural pesticides (PPDB) and veterinary substances (VSDB). To compliment they now offer the BioPesticide DataBase (BPDB) which is a comprehensive relational database of data relating to pesticides derived from natural substances. Contact the database management team: aeru(a)herts.ac.uk