The social and economic consequences of the failure to recognize, contain, and/or control threatening plant pathogens require that every effort be made to engage in efficient and effective programs of surveillance, diagnosis, and detection. This requires the networking of human and technical capacities from the field to the lab, rapid and secure communications, and exchange of information between stakeholders.
Effective plant disease diagnostic networks are vertically integrated, from well-trained first responders such as farmers and extension personnel (in this case CKWs) in the field to agriculture specialists (IITA and NARO) capable of providing crop management advice. Secure and trusted communication must travel in both directions (between the field and the specialists), as well as, being integrated with related national, regional, and global information networks. The increased capacity generated from this exchange of information can be used to update new disease reports, optimize surveillance strategies, and develop and modify disease/pest risk analyses.
Geospatial Information System (GIS) software integrates common database operations such as query and statistical analysis of data results, with the unique visualization and geographic analysis benefits offered by maps. These abilities distinguish GIS from other information systems and make it valuable to a wide range of agricultural organizations for explaining events, predicting outcomes and planning strategies. For this project, ArcGIS software was used to chart data on digital maps.
Mapping field operations can be used to calculate an area coverage range in order to determine the maximum spread of data collection and/or information distribution. Through these maps a project manager could target field operations to ensure all areas within a region are being serviced/sampled. This information is critical for any serious rural development effort that wants to target agriculture extension services and measure its impact.
The Mbale and Bushenyi districts are major banana growing areas in Uganda, but banana production is being threatened by the increasing presence of pests and diseases. The Grameen Foundation in collaboration with IITA and NARO have completed the first month of a pilot project using mobile phones to collect and disseminate banana disease specific agricultural information to assess the conditions in these two districts.
Surveys were carried out in Mbale and Bushenyi by 38 Community Knowledge Workers (19 in each district), to assess banana disease status (based on mapping disease incidence and statistical analysis), banana production (based on surveyed farmer estimates) and farmer knowledge of the diseases/pests and their associated control methods. In the first month alone, CKWs conducted surveys on 840 farms in Mbale and 854 farms in the Bushenyi district.
With this data, IITA has decided to treat all of us to a free GIS fireworks display ignited by the banana disease information collected by the CKWs. The maps were used to assess the area covered in the survey and the spatial distribution of banana disease incidences.
Figures 1 and 2 (below) show which farm sites were surveyed by the respective Mbale and Bushenyi CKWs (shown with separate colors per CKW). Note the dotted circles that represent a buffer of 3 km around the CKWs’ homestead. This helps the project team to determine the maximum range a CKW can move, the area that has been covered and the areas that have been neglected. Using this information, the project team can determine how long it should take to sample an entire region.
CKW color codes Mbale
CKW color codes Bushenyi
Map of reported BBW incidences in Mbale
Map of reported BBW incidences in Bushenyi
It is important to undertake systematic and comprehensive surveys of staple crop growing areas to get an update on the distribution of plant disease and the control strategies being used by growers. The data gathered can be used to determine reasons for disease spread and help to evaluate the best strategy for deployment of locally appropriate control options.
Assessment of risk due to each existing and potential plant pathogen will help to develop appropriate contingency plans for sampling strategies in terms of technical requirements and frequency of samples to be analyzed. Sampling must be performed in a cost-efficient and representative manner. Sustained disease surveillance and diagnosis of prevalent pathogens in any single cropping system, with information dissemination via networks, is crucial to plant safeguarding
Some of the content above was taken from a report titled “Plant Disease Capabilities and Diagnostic Networks” authored by Fen Beed, Sally Miller and Carrie Harmon.
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