Coordinator of Black Sigatoka Disease Management Unit in Dominica, Carol Abraham, has said that the biggest challenge facing the island as it battles the deadly plant disease is financial constraints.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of a week long Regional Workshop on Fungicides and Fungicide Resistance in Banana on Monday, Abraham pointed out that cuts made to the budgets presented to the unit by the Ministry of Agriculture are now posing a major challenge.
“Like Grenada we face financial challenges,” she said. “Although we prepare a budget and present it to the Ministry, we are not necessarily going to get what we ask for and that poses a problem because the country is divided into seven regions and we have spray teams for each region … after doing the work the men expect to be paid and that’s where there is a delay.”
According to her, although the disease has been under control because of the dry season, the constant rain in recent months has caused it to flare up again.
She said the unit was “lucky to get some chemicals from the Venezuelan government which we were able to use to help curb the disease” and “we were learning from other people’s experiences and attempted to rotate the chemicals to avoid resistance from the fungus.”
Ryan Anselm, Head of Plant Protection and Quarantine Services, added that immediately after the disease was detected an Emergency Task Force and a Management Committee were put in place to to develop and implement strategies to ma,nage the disease.
“With the assistance of the Food and Agriculture Organisation we put together an integrated Pest Management that speaks to three principals but for us in Dominica we have implemented four,” he said. “We have added quarantine and containment which is very important in Dominica because we have a traditional transporting of bananas and plantain to the local market where the farmers would use the leafing material to transport the crops.”
Black Sigatoka is a leaf spot disease of banana plants caused by ascomycete fungus. Plants with leaves affected by the disease may have up to 50 percent lower yield of fruit.
The disease was first detected in Dominica in July of 2012.
I thought of a solution. Why don’t perform ‘Operation Shut-down and Restart’. Basically, we should cut cut down all banana crops. throw out all of it. then clean our soil to get rid of that pest. and then start planting again. It makes no sense trying to pick which ones are infected. It’s best to just get rid of all of em. That would save us time and money.
Financial constraints? Who is the Minister of Finance?
The Banana industry is not worth saving ,The Minister can just send all the Farmers to the Clinic,I mean the Red one,He can just beg a little more and everything will be ok
LOL DNO on the ball lol
WEll is not money Skerrit wasting ner, trying to win elections?
“Like Grenada we face financial challenges,” she said. “Although we prepare a budget and present it to the Ministry, we are not necessarily going to get what we ask for and that poses a problem…” I would think that with the Prime Minister spending money everywhere and on everything, and he said we did not feel the full brunt of global economic crisis, the banana industry being as important as it is for the economic growth and development of Dominica, that government will make the money available for such an important venture!
boy this people lying . did the officiers from the ministry of agricultural tell us on Matt’s programme that measures are put in place to deal with this disease? Dominicans stop letting skerrit and his looking good men and talkers fool us. LET US STOP THESE VIRUSES from spreading. O help us Lord, when will it end?
At the end of the 5th paragraph i noticed that ms Abraham identified the disease as a virus, this is wrong the disease in a fungal disease.
The fifth paragraph quotes her as saying it’s a fungus. Did DNO correct after your comment?