12 Jun 2014

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has funded Botswana with P1.7 million to fight the Asian Fruit Fly, known as bactrocera. invadens.

The deputy permanent secretary (technical services) in the Ministry of Agriculture, Dr Moetapele Letshwenyo, said on June 10 that, "our first detection of the pest was in February 2010 in Chobe District and this was through a national detection survey of fruit flies conducted from 2007,” he said at the launch of the fruit fly project in Gaborone.

Dr Letshwenyo said the national detection was done to update the fruit fly pest list and to detect any new species of quarantine importance.

“People should note that Chobe shares its borders with Zambia, Namibia and Zimbabwe, meaning that cross border of the pest was imminent given its nature of mobility hence an agreement was made between the countries to jointly make project memoranda to request for funding from FAO to control the pest,” he said.

The objective of the project was to manage fruit fly populations in Chobe District and further cover the Tuli Block, including North East areas in Botswana to below economic thresholds -- if funds permit.

The February 2010 outbreak was contained in the Chobe area. However, other outbreaks were recorded in the Tuli Block in July 2012 and in North East in May 2013 because of the movement of the produce.

Dr Letshwenyo said the specific objectives of the project include establishing the status, host range and distribution of the fruit fly in project areas; creating awareness in the project areas and nationally; and building national capacity for fruit fly management. Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe also received P1.7 million each for the same project.

MS Oemetse Nkoane, the deputy permanent secretary (Corporate Services) in the Ministry of Agriculture, said the project sought to safe guard the livelihoods of Batswana by enhancing the crop production sector.

MS Nkange said the only worrying factor was that it seemed a lot of projects lagged behind because of slow implementation. She therefore called for urgency regarding the fruit fly project. “If we can manage to control the fruit fly, we will manage to have more food and we can sustain ourselves with food supply,” she said.

The Asian Fruit Fly attacks fruits and vegetables such as watermelon, morale, guava, avocado, banana, mango, tomato, pumpkin, cucumber, orange, lemon and apple. Farmers have been learning about the pest and how to control it. The ministry calls on farmers to cooperate with officials at border posts to fight the spread of the destructive pest. ENDS