FG cautions farmers on spread of cassava brown disease

 

The Director of Federal Department of Agriculture in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) Mrs Karima  Babangida has alerted farmers on the possibility of importing cassava brown steak disease (CBSD) into Nigeria, if care was not taken. She gave the alert at the stakeholders’ sensitization meeting on cassava brown steak disease held in South West at Moor Plantation, Ibadan recently.

 Babangida who was represented by a deputy director Dr. Deola-Tayo Lordbanjou said that pest and diseases were contributing factors to low agricultural productivity, adding that farmers must be educated on how to avoid planting of infested cassava cuttings by way of ensuring the source of the planting materials that were being planted.

She pointed out that “the recent emergence of CBSD in Central Africa has added to the threat of cassava productivity causing yield losses of up to 90% or even 100% in crop failure as witnessed at infected cassava farms in Uganda, Kenya and Republic of Congo,” adding that recognizing the seriousness of the situation which is becoming more ravaging in the sub-region, African scientist have created the West African Virus Epidemiology (WAVE) Programme for food security to facilitate public awareness of the disease and the way forward.
 

She noted that it was “on this premises that the Federal Department of Agriculture through the Cassava Value Chain team has decided to sensitize stakeholders all over the six geo-political zones starting from the participants in the South West Zone with the belief that you will pass the information to the other farmers within the zones.”

She continued: “Our goal is to promote management of cassava crop with good health, ensuring that stakeholders can identify the CBSD and comply with the rules of prevention and control mechanism of the dreadful viral diseases so as not to jeopardize food and nutrition security.”

Speaking on the devastating power of CBSD on cassava production, the Head of station, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Onne, Dr. Richardson Okechukwu cautioned on the need to take precaution against allowing the entrance of the disease through technology transfer into the country, adding that Nigeria risked losing one hundred million dollars annually if the disease was allowed to enter the country.

Okechukwu advocated that Nigeria should carry out a test survey to ascertain the non existence of the disease in the country saying cassava planting materials from Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda must be prevented from entering into the country.

The IITA official stressed that more vigilance and technology capacity to identify this disease should be intensely built against CBSD spread since it was incurable, adding that there was need for people to comply  with directives of both Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Services (NAQS) and National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC) on certified planting materials.  

The Director General, NASC, Dr. Philip Ojo said the agency had been better repositioned to ensure circulation of standard seeds, and demanding that scientists to intensify on transferring of technologies to farmers for increased productivity.

Dr Ojo who was represented by NASC South West regional head, Mr. Adeseko Adekunle, urged IITA to support the promotion saying his agency had sent its officials for more training on how to early detect CBSD saying the molecular laboratory of the agency had been upgraded to test efficiently.

The National Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS) head of station in Ibadan, Mr. Ogunfunmilayo Akindele in her paper presentation titled “Imagine plant stress of quarantine to CBSD’’ stated that about 460 exotic pests ravaging crops in the many parts of the world were not yet in Nigeria, but pointed out that this was the more reason Nigerian farmers must be alerted  to prevent the spread of this diseases.