Needs-based decision-making for cotton problems in Africa: A response to Hillocks

Abstract

This Forum contribution forms a response to the thoughtful article on the role of Bt cotton for African smallholders by Rory Hillocks in International Journal of Pest Management 51(2):131–141. We urge a more nuanced approach to consideration of pesticide-related and other technical issues in the conventional cotton sector, including recent estimates of external costs to health from current patterns of pesticide use, even at the low application levels in volume/area terms reported from Africa. We examine economic and institutional aspects of cotton production and the debates centred upon the potential of Bt cotton for resource-poor farmers in developing countries. Based on research and project experience over the last decade, we discuss the role of organic cotton and the benefits it provides for African men and women smallholders, and conclude with a summary of the potential for expansion and policy, research and development needs.     

Integrated pest management of coffee for small-scale farmers in East Africa: needs and limitations

Coffee in East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda) is an important cash and export crop for small-scale farmers. The crop suffers heavy yield losses due to damage caused by a wide range of indigenous pests (insects, diseases, nematodes and weeds). Current recommended pest control measures include a combination of cultural, resistant/tolerant cultivars and the use of broad spectrum chemical pesticides. Chemical pesticides are far more popular at the farm level than any of the other recommended pest control measures. Coffee pest control strategies are often aimed at individual pests with little consideration of the implications for the total coffee pest complex and its agro-ecosystem. This unilateral approach has resulted in increased pest pressure on coffee and some of its companion crops, outbreak of new pests of coffee, development of pest strains resistant to the cheap and commonly available chemical pesticides, increased environmental problems, increased health risks to man and livestock and an overall increase in the costs of coffee production, thus forcing many farmers to neglect their coffee plantations. Measures to alleviate the above problems, particularly the high production costs, are needed to improve coffee production and increase the cash return to the small-scale farmer. Integrated pest management (IPM) offers the best prospects for solving the above problems. However, lack of national IPM policies, poor extension systems, inefficient research-extension-farmer linkage and the lack of a holistic approach will delay the development and implementation of appropriate, acceptable and sustainable IPM practices.     

Feasibility and efficacy of a new approach for controlling populations of the rosy apple aphid,Dysaphis plantaginea Passerini (Hemiptera: Aphididae) in south-eastern France

Episyrphus balteatus De Geer (Diptera: Syrphidae) is one of the most efficient biocontrol agents against Dysaphis plantaginea Passerini (Hemiptera: Aphididae) in apple orchards due to its early arrival. However, releasing flying predators in open orchards may be risky. We thus evaluated the combined effects of biological (early release of syrphids) and physical (Alt'Carpo nets) methods for controlling aphids under orchard conditions assuming that syrphids released under the nets will be able to survive and reproduce. Five experimental treatments containing two rows of trees each were set up in a pesticide-free orchard containing two different apple cultivars. For each cultivar, E. Balteatus adults were released (25, 40 and 90 adults per row) into three treatments, which were covered with nets, and two treatments were maintained free as controls (with and without nets). The releases, mainly in treatment 90, had a small effect on the development of the aphid population compared to netted control trees, especially towards the end of the study period when some of the differences were significant. This study demonstrated that E. balteatus adults can be successfully released under nets since we did observe an accumulation in the offspring of released individuals, mainly in treatments 40 and 90.