Remote technology transfer and advisory services for farmers during COVID-19

Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, countries around the world are enforcing restrictions to save lives. Communities are having to change the way they live and work, often relying more on digital tools, if they can. During this unprecedented time, it is vital that smallholder farmers can still access plant health information and advice without…
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Spotted coffee grasshopper in Bangladesh

Even during the COVID lockdown, news channels buzzed in Bangladesh on the arrival of swarms of an unknown pest that were partially covering mango and guava crops, and some forest trees in Teknaf Upazila, Cox’s Bazar District.
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Update: New Pest & Disease Records (07 May 2020)

We’ve selected a few of the latest new geographic, host and species records for plant pests and diseases from CAB Abstracts. Records this month include the first report of Lasiodiplodia theobromae causing fruit rot in Melon in Thailand and the first report of the red palm mite Raoiella indica in Manabí, Ecuador.
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Working together online to support farmers during lockdown in India

55 year old Valli Kupuswamy carries a bag of grass (for cattle) she collected from her paddy field in Embalam village outside of Pondicherry, India. Photo: Sanjit Das/Panos
“Necessity is the mother of invention” – Plato This is a famous phrase, indicating that a need or problem encourages creative efforts to meet the need or solve the problem. The world is currently going through a difficult time due to COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in an almost-complete shutdown of all activities across the…
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Test your plant health knowledge

Chinyunyu Plant Clinic in Rufunsa district, Zambia.
>> Latest quiz just added Plantwise plant doctors are at the heart of our plant clinic network providing advice and information to farmers, logging their data for the Plantwise Knowledge Bank, and always adapting to new outbreaks and technologies. Think you’ve got what it takes to be a plant doctor? Take our online plant health…
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Update: New Pest & Disease Records (16 April 2020)

We’ve selected a few of the latest new geographic, host and species records for plant pests and diseases from CAB Abstracts. Records this month include the first report of the invasive Argentine ant Linepithema humile in the Tuscan archipelago and the first record of hairy cup grass Eriochloa villosa, an invasive grass species, in Austria.
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Developing ‘last mile’ extension services with Plantwise in Nepal

nepal farmer
In Nepal, the Community Business Facilitator (CBF) plant doctor programme is a successful pilot. Linking with the private sector, it reaches those in remote rural areas – or ‘last mile’ communities – with plant protection services, substantially increasing incomes and reducing losses for smallholder farmers. The CBF plant doctors conduct clinics at their own cost…
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Test your plant health knowledge

Chinyunyu Plant Clinic in Rufunsa district, Zambia.
>> Latest quiz just added Plantwise plant doctors are at the heart of our plant clinic network providing advice and information to farmers, logging their data for the Plantwise Knowledge Bank, and always adapting to new outbreaks and technologies. Think you’ve got what it takes to be a plant doctor? Take our online plant health…
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Nuru AI expansion: Supporting farmers to diagnose crop diseases

An extension grant has been awarded to the PlantVillage Nuru project, developing an artificial-intelligence-based solution for the identification and diagnosis of crop diseases targeting smallholder farmers. Under the Inspire Challenge programme, the international research consortium CGIAR has awarded the project a $250,000 grant to scale-up and expand its activities to a global level. Until now…
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Update: New Pest & Disease Records (10 March 2020)

We’ve selected a few of the latest new geographic, host and species records for plant pests and diseases from CAB Abstracts. Records this month include reports on three new species of ambrosia beetle in Great Britain and a new potyvirus isolated from Mirabilis jalapa in China.
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