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| Africa Subsaharan | ||
| The next panic? West African States in Joint Fight against Root Crop 'Ebola' | ||
| 2018-07-16 | ||
Their enemy: cassava brown streak disease (CBSD), a virus that strikes cassava, also called manioc, which in some of the region's countries is consumed by as many as 80 percent of the population. The root-rotting disease was first discovered in Tanzania eight decades ago and is steadily moving westward. "In outbreaks in central Africa, it has wiped out between 90 and 100 percent of cassava production -- it's now heading towards West Africa," Justin Pita, in charge of the research programme, told AFP. "It is a very big threat. It has to be taken very seriously." In Uganda, 3,000 people died of hunger in the 1990s after the dreaded disease showed up, striking small farmers in particular. "You can call it the Ebola of cassava," said Pita. The West African Virus Epidemiology (WAVE) project, a multi-million-dollar scheme funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, aims to shield the region from the advancing peril. Headquartered at Bingerville, on the edges of the Ivorian economic capital Abidjan, it gathers six countries from West Africa -- Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Togo -- as well as the Democratic Republic of Congo. Much is already known about CBSD -- the virus is generally believed to be propagated by an insect called the silverleaf whitefly, and also through cuttings taken from infected plants. But there remain gaps in knowledge about West Africa's specific vulnerabilities to the disease. They include understanding the susceptibility of local strains of cassava to the virus, and identifying points in the cassava trade that can help a localised outbreak of CBSD swell into an epidemic. The scheme will also look at initiatives to help boost yield -- a key challenge in a region with surging population growth. "The current average yield from cassava (in West Africa) is 10 to 12 tonnes per hectare (four to 4.8 tonnes per acre), but it has the potential to reach 40 tonnes a hectare," said Odile Attanasso, Benin's minister of higher education and scientific research. "In Asia, they have yields of 22 tonnes per hectare." | ||
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #3 Just so you know there is a GMO cassava that is bred to be resistant to this virus but you know better to have people starve than plant this stuff. The process doesn't use pesticides but inserts some of the viral DNA into the plant. The plant's DNA repair code spots something fishy and stops the replication of the virus proteins. I think this was discovered with petunias when they tried to make a really dark flower by inserting mutiple copies of the gene for purple. They were surprised to see all the plants bloomed white since they managed to turn off all the genes need to make the ourple pigment. I'm sure this is same pathway used to turn off the relication of the virusp. BTW Monsanto had a potato that was engineered to be virus resistant. The potato virus makes those brown diamonds you sometimes see in the flesh. This virus is spread by aphids so the only recourse was massive spraying of insecticides. The Japanese IIRC didn't want the GMO potato so it was scuttled when a newer generation of insecticides was approved for potato. |
| Posted by: Thrise Shomble3667 2018-07-16 16:23 |
| #2 Sounds like the situation that brought most of Ireland to the US a few years ago. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2018-07-16 09:59 |
| #1 first discovered in Tanzania eight decades ago Let's see...that's 80 YEARS! Guess intertribal fighting, eating their neighbors and ousting the whites took priority. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2018-07-16 02:16 |