Frosty Pod Rot announced on Caribbean Cocoa

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Frosty Pod Rot, a potentially devastating disease of cocoa caused by the fungus Moniliophthora roreri, has been reported for the first time in Jamaica.  First discovered in Ecuador in 1917, Frosty Pod Rot has since spread to many other Latin American countries including Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Peru, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala. Until now, countries in the…
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“Stop those pests!” – Great Success for CFS43 Side Event

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Reblogged from the IPPC blog. The side event was co-organized by the Secretariat of the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) and the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources of Australia with a manifold success. The side event was held during the 43rd Session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS43) on 18 October 2016,…
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Tune in to the Cassava show

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Last week in the Nkhotakota region of Malawi a new radio show went on air. Not a news programme or a music show, but a show devoted to Cassava. Sounds pretty specific? Well, it’s even more focussed than that. The weekly 30 minute programme is actually focussed on managing one of Cassava’s most damaging diseases…
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Update: New Pest & Disease Records (19 Oct 16)

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We’ve selected a few of the latest new geographic, host and species records for plant pests and diseases from CAB Abstracts. Records this fortnight include descriptions of two new species from the subfamily Greenideinae (Hemiptera: Aphididae) from Laos, a report on Megachile leaf-cutter and resin bees of Singapore and a report on the host plant of Cercophana frauenfeldii…
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A greater role for educational animation in extension?

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Blog contributed by Nick Quist Nathaniels, Independent Consultant, Denmark Computer animations are a rather special and exciting communication medium. For example, they can be used to illustrate the basic biology of pests and diseases and explain control measures. Animations are also an effective way to show changes that occur over a long time or at the…
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Our favourite recipes – Ghana

Recipe courtesy of Hannah Serwaa Numah Following Claire’s series of posts on ‘making the most of the Plantwise knowledge bank’, I’d now like to introduce our next mini-series, which asks our country partners for their favourite recipes using top crops brought into plant clinics in their countries, so we can share them with you! Our first…
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Plantwise: connecting smallholders to knowledge through ICT interventions

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The emergence of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the last decade has opened new avenues in knowledge management that could play important roles in meeting the prevailing challenges related to sharing, exchanging and disseminating knowledge and technologies. The types of ICT-enabled services are capable of improving the capacity and livelihoods of poor smallholders are…
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Update: New Pest & Disease Records (05 Oct 16)

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We’ve selected a few of the latest new geographic, host and species records for plant pests and diseases from CAB Abstracts. Records this fortnight include a record of Yamatochaitophorus yichunensis, a new species of aphid from northeast China, a report on Rust (Olivea neotectonae) occurrence on teak plants in Sergipe, Brazil and a new record of a…
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Kenyan farmers keen to learn more about pest and disease management at agri trade fair

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Plantwise Kenya held a demonstration plant clinic at the University of Eldoret Agribusiness Trade Fair, held on the university’s campus from 22-25 September. The fair, which has been an annual highlight in western Kenya for the past 11 years, saw around 30,000 visitors exploring over 200 exhibits.
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The secret to cutting global hunger rates around the world? Hello, ladies.

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By Morgan Shoaff. Reblogged from Upworthy.com There’s a pretty simple way we could be feeding an additional 150 million hungry people around the world. It’s not through some super advanced technology or billion-dollar idea that someone just came up with. The answer has been right in front of us for a very long time: Women. Women farmers…
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