The Hindu covers Plantwise India
National newspaper The Hindu publishes article discussing the positive impact of Plantwise activities in the country. With support of the M.S.Swaminathan Research Foundation, ‘plant doctors are coming to the rescue’ of farmers in India. Read full article here.
Photo of the Month, October 2013 – Idyllic location for training in Malawi
Plantwise was launched in Malawi in May 2013 after vigorous training of plant doctors in crop pest identification and how to give recommendations based on the identified pest problem. In the 14 plant clinics widespread in Lilongwe and Mzimba, there was need to understand the role that the plant clinic data will play in the…
Watch the new Knowledge Bank demo
http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP6FzVJvb7o&feature=youtu.be Check out the latest video demo featuring highlights of the new Plantwise Knowledge Bank version 2.1. New translation capabilities and offline content delivery make the knowledge bank a shared resource for even more people in more communities worldwide. Regional pages focus on plant health problems that cross national boarders, and improved search and diagnostic…
Landmark climate change report will bring new concerns for food security
Tomorrow, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will release its fifth global warming report predicting indicators of climate change for the coming years. The expectation is that the temperature is set to increase even more dramatically than the last report predicted in 2007, causing a domino effect on weather conditions, oceanic trends and the multitude of ecosystems which…
Resolving pest problems in Trinidad and Tobago
Article by Shamela Rambadan, CABI Country Coordinator. In Trinidad and Tobago many Plantwise plant clinics have been implemented to provide free information and advice to smallholder farmers. To date there are 8 plant clinics in Trinidad and 2 are planned for Tobago. CABI Plantwise is partnered with the Ministry of Food Production with extension workers from the Ministry and…
Plantwise visits ‘open source GIS’ conference, FOSS4G 2013
On Thursday 19th November, I attended the ‘Free and Open Source Software For GIS’ (FOSS4G) conference in Nottingham, UK with two of my colleagues from the Plantwise Knowledge Bank. The conference, organised by OSGeo, had the strapline “Geo For All” and aimed to show that the tools that this Geographic Information Systems (GIS) community is…
Plantwise knowledge bank well-received in Brazil
Last week, Cambria Finegold, Head of Project Development for the Plantwise knowledge bank, gave a seminar at São Paulo State University (UNESP), one of the largest agricultural universities in Brazil. The seminar, entitled “The Plantwise Knowledge Bank for research on Distribution, Identification, and Control of Agricultural Pests – Use and Potential” generated positive feedback from…
Days are numbered for pests in Kenya’s irrigation schemes
Report by Peter Karanja and Abigail Rumsey Between May and July this year, 22 new plant clinics were established in Kenya. Nine of these clinics were launched by the Smallscale Horticulture Development Project (SHDP), which has been funded by the African Development Bank to help smallholder farmers increase the amount that they produce and earn…
Warming Climate Marches Pests and Pathogens Polewards
The distribution of plant pests and pathogens has been observed to be moving away from the equator towards the North and South poles and inhabit areas previously too cold for their existence. This threatens to increase the percentage of crops lost annually to pests and pathogens and subsequently raises major concerns over global food security. A…
IPPC and Plantwise Collaboration initiated with a Rome Secondment
As part of our recent efforts to improve collaboration on joint activities, CABI Plantwise is delighted to announce an agreement with the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) to initiate secondments between the two organizations, and thereby increase transparency and effectiveness. Katherine Cameron, Knowledge Bank Development Manager for Plantwise, has joined the IPPC secretariat at the FAO…