Preventing A Great Lakes Food Crisis

By Debbie DeVoe

BONGU, Kenya — Driving down dusty roads in western Kenya, it's easy to tell which fields are on their way to losing their cassava harvests. Spindly stalks of faded leaves blotched with yellow hang limply under the harsh sun. Pass an infected banana field, and the devastation is even more obvious: Trees that should be adorned with crowns of big, healthy green leaves are instead weighted down with scraggly dried-out fronds.

The diseases causing this damage — banana xanthomonas wilt disease and cassava mosaic virus disease — are as bad as they sound. Currently the largest natural threat to food security in the African Great Lakes region, the diseases are decimating banana and cassava fields across east and central Africa. Together, these two crop diseases are affecting more than 70 million people, causing thousands of farmers to worry about their ability to feed their families and cover daily expenses.

"Cassava mosaic disease has been around for more than a century, but in the last 20 years, new and more severe strains are wiping out fields in the Great Lakes region. Banana wilt disease has also come to the area, increasing concerns about food security and livelihoods," explains Benard Odero, CRS Kenya's Crop Crisis Control project manager. "The risks are real. Cassava is the primary food staple in much of the affected area, and bananas — while also a food staple — serve as a primary income source for more than 20 million people in the region."

Controlling a Crop Crisis

Catholic Relief Services is responding to this crisis through the Crop Crisis Control project, a regional agricultural initiative funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development to stem spread of the diseases in Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

In partnership with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, CRS is leading a network of regional associations, agricultural research institutions and local partners to help educate Great Lakes farmers about the diseases and teach them effective measures for controlling further spread. The project is also working with farmers to grow disease-resistant cassava plants, from which cuttings will be distributed to at least 100,000 farming households from October 2007 through March 2008 to help re-establish healthy fields and protect future harvests throughout the region.

"Cassava used to be here, but the disease just came and swept it away. A lot of farms were destroyed, and farmers abandoned planting cassava," notes George Otieno, a farmer growing disease-resistant plants for the project in Bongu, Kenya.

"It's good that through these cuttings, others will get [disease-resistant plants], and they will then be all over," adds Silpa Adede, another project farmer in Bongu growing cassava plants for distribution of healthy cuttings. "The crop will also act as food security, because even during droughts it will be there."

Enlisting Farmer Support

Cassava mosaic disease can reduce yields by 75 percent to 90 percent within one year of a field becoming infected, with diseased plants producing significantly fewer and smaller roots. As a result, many farmers have abandoned cassava cultivation, increasing the risk of regional food shortages.

By disseminating disease-resistant cuttings, the Crop Crisis Control project is encouraging farmers to grow cassava again. In Kenya, the project is working with three local partners to accomplish this: the Diocese of Homa Bay, Archdiocese of Kisumu and Rural Energy and Food Security Organization, a local community-based organization.

"There have been farmers coming from Migori district and others coming from Suba. They're asking where I got [these plants], and they're asking if I can give them some," George says. "They even came with money. They wanted me to harvest some for them."

This interest in healthy cassava plants is extremely promising, as is communities' willingness to come together to fight banana wilt disease.

Although banana wilt disease is relatively new, its impact — which can reduce production by up to 100 percent — can be more acute due to the large number of communities relying on bananas as a cash crop. Once established in an area, this disease spreads rapidly and is difficult to eradicate. Without proper management, yields drop to virtually zero, with fruit ripening early and rotting on the vine.

To help control this disease, the Crop Crisis Control project in Kenya conducts awareness campaigns through radio announcements and posters. The project also holds field days where farmers are invited to an infected field. Partner staff are then able to show farmers the symptoms of the disease and demonstrate how to cut back male buds to contain spread. They also explain the need to uproot entire banana fields when infection rates rise above 40 percent, which unfortunately means no banana harvests for at least the next two years.

In high-yield areas, farmers are also encouraged to create task forces charged with patrolling the region to identify and uproot any diseased banana trees. This is essential, because one diseased tree can easily infect many others through use of contaminated field tools and pollination by bees. In addition, the project has been organizing training of local extension workers through the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute to increase awareness and response.

"Our efforts on the ground and widespread public information campaigns are enabling us to quickly reach thousands of households," Odero observes. "This unique marriage of research and development efforts is giving farmers the plants and information they need to control spread of the diseases well into the future."

Debbie DeVoe is CRS' regional information officer in East Africa. She is based in Nairobi and recently visited the fields of Crop Crisis Control farmers in western Kenya.