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2008-09-22 | permalink
Non-GE approach successful to combat banana bacterial wilt in Uganda
A joint FAO-government project in Uganda has helped over 3000 farmers combat a pestilent disease that threatened to wipe out production of cooking banana, a staple crop upon which 14 million Ugandans depend for food and income. Not only has the spread of banana bacterial wilt (BBW) been contained in the districts where the project was implemented, but several participating farmers have doubled or tripled their production of the fruit. [...] No banana varieties are known to be resistant to the disease and there is no chemical control effective against it, so once it appears it can spread like wildfire. [...] “Today you do not find banana wilt disease in any of the districts where the field schools have been established, which were at one time the front line hot spots in this effort,” says Wafa Khoury of FAO’s Plant Production and Protection Division.
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News
2008-09-22 | permalink
Non-GE approach successful to combat banana bacterial wilt in Uganda
A joint FAO-government project in Uganda has helped over 3000 farmers combat a pestilent disease that threatened to wipe out production of cooking banana, a staple crop upon which 14 million Ugandans depend for food and income. Not only has the spread of banana bacterial wilt (BBW) been contained in the districts where the project was implemented, but several participating farmers have doubled or tripled their production of the fruit. [...] No banana varieties are known to be resistant to the disease and there is no chemical control effective against it, so once it appears it can spread like wildfire. [...] “Today you do not find banana wilt disease in any of the districts where the field schools have been established, which were at one time the front line hot spots in this effort,” says Wafa Khoury of FAO’s Plant Production and Protection Division.
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