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Biocontrol News and Information
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March 2003, Volume 24 No. 1
- General News
- IPM Systems
- Training News
- Announcements
- Conference Reports
- Books
IPM Systems
This section covers integrated pest management (IPM) including biological control, and techniques that are compatible with the use of biological control or minimize negative impact on natural enemies.
Implementing IPM against Parasitic Weeds in Africa
An emerging partnership on Striga and Orobanche control in cereal-legume systems aims to overcome obstacles to effective IPM of these parasitic weeds in Africa. Cereals and legumes are principal staples, important saleable commodities and sources of animal feed. The crops are often rotated and intercropped and are damaged by similar parasitic weeds, which may sometimes cause total crop failure. Over the last 30 years, researchers have developed, tested and proposed many IPM technologies to control them. However, these IPM options have never become widely nor effectively adopted by farmers in Africa, and this has contributed to the increasing importance of Striga and Orobanche in their fields.
Now, the Systemwide Program on IPM (SP-IPM), the Pan African Network for Striga Control (PASCON), the Global IPM Facility (GIF) and the Semi-Arid Food Grain Research and Development Program (SAFGRAD), established by the African Union, have teamed up to develop a common field programme dedicated to achieving impact at the community level by breaking down barriers, promoting inclusiveness and focusing on action. They are working in close collaboration with the Agricultural Departmental Group of the FAO Regional Office for Africa (FAORAFA). Each partner has pilot site experience to contribute on IPM for control of Striga in maize, sorghum, millet and cowpea in sub-Saharan Africa, and/or Orobanche control in faba bean and chickpea in North Africa.
As a first step in the consultative planning process, an Africa-wide IPM Partnership Workshop, `Towards effective implementation of parasitic weed IPM in cereal-legume cropping systems in Africa' was held on 29-31 October 2002 in Cotonou, Benin. At this meeting, 31 representatives of national programmes in 12 countries and with four programmes/networks reviewed progress and identified elements for a common field programme.
Technical reports revealed that there was a good history of inter-institutional collaboration with donor interests, which has produced a rich basket of researcher/farmer evaluated IPM options, but field implementation of the options has been limited. IPM research that is productive in outputs yet unproductive for farmers has been widely recognized as a shortcoming that needs to be addressed - indeed, the SP-IPM was set up to tackle it. Workshop participants agreed that the main challenge ahead was to ensure that the IPM options are translated into real improvements in parasitic weed control on farms. The partners resolved to fine-tune existing IPM options and diversify them. They also aim to look at a number of joint learning and extension approaches (Farmer Field Schools, Local Linked Learning, and Mushrooming Farmer Clusters) to see what lessons can be drawn that could support implementation activities.
Participants recognized that further research was needed in some areas, notably seed ecology, strain variability and biological control, but noted that these are outside the immediate objectives of the field programme and need to be pursued by partners under separate initiatives.
For step 2 in the consultative process, a technical team of representatives from partner organizations has been asked to draft a comprehensive field programme. This process will be hosted by INRA (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique), Morocco following interactions with the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FORA) and its network of organizations.
In step 3, SAFGRAD will host a stakeholder workshop in Burkina Faso to discuss the field programme with a broader range of stakeholder groups, including policy makers, farmer organizations and support groups, commodity networks, research institutions and donor representatives.
The next step will be to implement the programme in the field. Through this carefully constructed and coordinated offensive, the partners hope to promote the adoption of locally available IPM options by farmers and achieve a significant reduction of the parasitic weed seed bank in the soils. If this can be achieved, a real breakthrough may be made against the stranglehold that Striga and Orobanche have on cereal and legume crops in Africa.
Contact: Braima James, SP-IPM
Secretariat, IITA Biological Control Center for Africa,
08 B.P. 0932 Tri Postal, Cotonou, Benin
Email: B.James@cgiar.org
Segun Lagoke, PASCON
Secretariat,
University of Agriculture,
Abeokuta, Nigeria
Email: pascon1@yahoo.com
Sulayman Mboob,
FAO Regional Office for Africa,
PO Box 1628, Accra, Ghana
Email: Sulayman.Mboob@fao.org
Mamadou Ouattara,
SAFGRAD Coordination Office,
01 B.P. 1783 Ouagadougou 01,
Burkina Faso
Email: ouattaram.safgrad@cenatrin.bf
IPMEurope Changes
Changes in the management of IPMEurope, the network for coordinating European support for IPM policy and implementation in developing countries, have been announced. The Chair for the coming year is Trond Hofsvang (Norway), with the newly-created post of Vice-Chair filled by Nicola La Porta (Italy). He will then take over as Chair for the following year. The Secretariat has moved to GTZ, where it will be managed by Petra Schill (GTZ), with funding from the European Commission to support IPMEurope core activities.
The recently re-designed and re-launched website of IPMEurope is now at:
A new addition to the site is pages covering European developments on rodent research and management implementation, including links to key collaborators within and outside Europe.
There is also a new proposal for a Task Force to collaborate on `Subsistence farmer innovation', and comments and expressions of interest are invited. IPMEurope already operates other task forces (Food quality and safety, Advanced biotechnology and Biopesticides) and invites input into these, and suggestions for others. IPMEurope describes a Task Force as `a priority mechanism for delivery of IPMEurope outputs... either by improving understanding or through the delivery of development.'
Contact: Petra
Schill , IPMEurope Secretariat, Rural Development Division,
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ),
Dag-Hammarskjöld-Weg 1-5,
Postfach 5180, 65726 Eschborn, Germany
Email: petra.schill@gtz.de
Fax: +49 6196 797173