International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (Icipe) has
imported a wasp from Hawaii to help mango farmers at the Coast fight
fruit flies. The biggest threat to mango production in Africa is the
pest, also known as Fopius Arisanus, Icipe Africa fruit fly programme
leader Dr Sunday Ekesi said.
Kenya’s mango exports have been locked out
of lucrative global markets such as South Africa, Europe, the Middle
East, Japan and US after being infested by the fly. Yield loss on
mangoes in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda due to the fruit fly ranges
between 30 and 70 per cent depending on the locality, season, and
variety of the fruit, he said. A recent study funded by Agricultural
Business Development indicated that more than 80,000 households at the
Coast engage in mango production with an estimated one million people
earning their livelihood from the sector.
“There are more than
18,000 hectares with 1.3 million trees under cultivation,” said Mr
Gachanja Githende, a researcher in a past interview. He said the
industry is valued at Sh260 million per year. According to Dr Ekesi,
Kenya has been grappling with the problem of the mango fruit fly since
2003 when the pest reportedly came along with imported commodities from
Sri Lanka. It has since become the single biggest threat to the mango
and avocado sub-sectors in the country. “Presence of any trace of the
mango fruit fly can lead to the destruction of an entire consignment at
the exporters’ costs,” Dr Ekesi said, adding that the pest is also found
in 28 other African countries. He said Kenya has since 2008 been losing
$2 million (Sh180 million) annually for not exporting avocados to just a
single market. “When they fly found its way into Kenya, there was no
accompanying natural enemy to contain its multiplication as happens in
Sri Lanka,” Dr Ekesi said.
In Sri Lanka, there are two types of
insects that feed on the eggs and larvae of the mango fruit fly, keeping
the level of damage at a manageable level, says the scientist. However,
earlier efforts to import the two insects from Sri Lanka were not
successful due to hurdles in exchange of biodiversity such as what Kenya
was to offer in return, Dr Ekesi said. This took Icipe scientists to
Hawaii in US, which first experienced the mango fruit fly problem in
1940s and imported natural enemies from Asia that they today use to
contain the menace. The wasp only needs to be introduced once after,
which it breeds and increase its population, so long as they are not
killed by pesticides. The wasp was introduced in Kilifi and Malindi last
month after trials were conducted in Magadi. Used together with other
methods, the pest control will achieve over 90 per cent results, Mr
Ekesi said.
Kenya Technical Standing Committee on Import and
Export of biological material has already approved the introduction of
the insects for commercial use, says Ekesi. After North Coast, the
insects will be introduced in South Coast and Eastern province. The
trials have established that the pest is effective in controlling mango
fruit fry and it does harm other useful organisms, Ekesi said. The Icipe
project, which is funded by GIZ of Germany and Biovision, a Swiss Ngo
to a tune of 1.5 million euros covers Tanzania, Uganda, Benin, Cameroon
and Senegal, Mr Ekesi said.
Market analysts see this development as a
major breakthrough for a sector that has not been able to generate
sustainable revenues to farmers due to marketing challenges. Projects of
value addition have already been started in Hola, where the Coast
Development Authority is constructing the first major mango processing
plant.
From the survey findings carried out by Institution
Development and Management (IDM) Services recently on mango sub sector
in the Coast Region, it supports over 80,000 farm families. Information
from the survey shows that the population of trees stands over 1.3
million.
Taking all products into consideration, the value of
the mango sub-sector at the farm gate level is estimated to be Sh2.6
billion annually, the study said. Dynamics in the mango sub-sector show
that there is a general rise in the population of trees exemplified by
the number of new entrants in mango farming and the number of trees in
the 0 - 3 years category, 178,391, representing 13.3 per cent of the
total population. “ It is also evident that the mango sub sector has the
potential to drive a substantial proportion of the agricultural economy
in the Coast region as 78 per cent of all the trees fall in the
productive category,” Gachanja Githende a managing partner of IDM.
Business Daily Africa
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