Plantwise Uganda to add thirty plant doctors to their pool
Contributed by Jane Frances Asaba and Joseph Mulema, both CABI Africa, and Phil Taylor, CABI Egham-UK Plantwise has been operating in Uganda for 8 years, throughout which progress in setting up plant clinics with partners has been slow but steady. Recently, things are really taking off; extension workers being instructed to attend courses by their superiors, and their role…
Demonstrating plant virus transmission to farmers at a Plant Health Rally in Kenya
Blog by Florence Chege and Julien Lamontagne-Godwin During a Plant Health Rally regional training in Kitale, Western Kenya, 15 participants, including CABI Africa staff, local Kenya Agricultural Research Institute staff, Ministry of Agriculture extension staff and international Plantwise collaborators from Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda, went out to inform farmers on various local plant health issues…
New technology for detecting pests and diseases
by Keron Bascombe, Technology4Agri Much of farm enterprise activity is spent dealing with pests and diseases which significantly lower the yield of produce. For many producers this warrants the use of pesticides of many kinds to deter a wide variety of pests and insects that can either destroy crops or act as vectors that cause…
Helping to Secure Crop Yields Globally with Land Drainage
by Tim Sissons of William Morfoot land drainage, experts based in the East of England. Along with a combination of other factors, agriculture, and therefore food production depend on the proper management of water to enable crops to develop properly and yields to be healthy. Globally, ecosystems and environments vary greatly and even the most…
Banana bacterial wilt leaves thousands hungry in Tanzania
According to IPP Media, over 8,000 people in 15 villages in Kagera region of Tanzania are in dire need of food relief following an outbreak of banana bacterial disease that has destroyed 90% of the banana crop. Bananas are the staple food for people in the region. Adam Malima, Deputy Minister for Agriculture, Food and…
Genetic Engineering in Barbados
The Sorrel plant (left) was one of those found by the trainees during the recent training in Module 1 of how to be a plant doctor. The plant doctor training uses live plant material as well we photographs to lead the trainees through the process of field diagnosis. The large and hard beige lump…
Plantwise heads west (in Uganda)
The recent awareness raising exercise that took place in Fort Portal in the west of Uganda was a roaring success. The key to extending Plantwise in Uganda was to involve the Chief Administrative officers, District Agricultural officers and the NAADS coordinator of each of the districts. The extension service in Uganda is mostly decentralised with…
Local trainers trained in Uganda
Plantwise is expanding rapidly and it is difficult to keep up with the demand (see Plantwise heads west) in some parts of Africa. Uganda was one of the first countries that took up the concept of Plant clinics and thus it is one of the most advanced in clinic numbers and in the integration of…
Julien Lamontagne-Godwin at a cacao depot in North Kivu, DRC
Whenever I am working in Democratic Republic of Congo, I always link up with our partner ESCO, a regional cacao producer and exporter, also active in Uganda.
More Plant Doctors for Uganda
Module 1 of the How to be a Plant Doctor has recently taken place at the Makerere University Agricultural research institute. The training over 3 days (12th –14th Nov) was opened by Dr Robert Karyeija, the assistant commissioner for crop protection, and was led by CABI trainers Phil Taylor from CABI UK and Joseph Mulema…