Integrated pest management (IPM) offers the best prospects for solving the above problems. Measures to alleviate the above problems, particularly the high production costs, are needed to improve coffee production and increase the cash return to the small-scale farmer. This unilateral approach has resulted in increased pest pressure on coffee and some of its companion crops, outbreak of new pests of coffee, development of pest strains resistant to the cheap and commonly available chemical pesticides, increased environmental problems, increased health risks to man and livestock and an overall increase in the costs of coffee production, thus forcing many farmers to neglect their coffee plantations. Coffee pest control strategies are often aimed at individual pests with little consideration of the implications for the total coffee pest complex and its agro-ecosystem. Chemical pesticides are far more popular at the farm level than any of the other recommended pest control measures. Current recommended pest control measures include a combination of cultural, resistant/tolerant cultivars and the use of broad spectrum chemical pesticides. The crop suffers heavy yield losses due to damage caused by a wide range of indigenous pests (insects, diseases, nematodes and weeds). Coffee in East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda) is an important cash and export crop for small-scale farmers.
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