Community Level

Crop Disease Surveillance

Quick Win Project

Hein Bouwmeester, Fen Beed, Whitney Gantt

8/6/2010
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 Community Level
Crop Disease Surveillance Project

Objective:
Assess the feasibility of a participatory GIS-enabled plant diagnostics
network (and the potential of mobile technologies)

to provide a blueprint for how a range of agriculture-focused field

organizations can collect data, explain events, predict outcomes, and
adapt and refine strategies with more accurate, cost-efficient, and
timely information.

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 Banana Disease & Livelihoods in Uganda

• Uganda is Africa’s largest producer of banana and a strong

correlation exists between banana production, income generation,
and food security
• Three banana disease pose a serious threat to food security and
the livelihoods of millions of farmers in East Africa:
o Panama Disease (also known as Fusarium Wilt)
o Banana Bacterial Wilt (BBW or BXW)
o Banana Bunchy Top Disease (BBTD)
• Economic evaluations of the impact of banana bacteria wilt
(BBW) reported annual losses of between $70 to $200 million USD
for Uganda alone

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 Plant diseases and pests the biggest constraint

Perception of threats to banana production

Cost transportation to market

Lack of selling opportunities

Price planting materials

Poor yields

Climate

Poor soil

Lack of training / extension

Plant disease / pest Problem

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800

Bushenyi (N=853) Mbale (N=978)

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Source: Google - Predict and Prevent
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GF:
Brings network of village-level
intermediaries (CKWs) + mobile
When:
technologies (GPS units and
handsets with the capacity to
gather real-time data) and
disseminate results and
recommendations in rural areas.

IITA:
Brings expert advice on banana
disease identification, prevention,
and control to farmers, gives
trainings and does GIS analysis
that illustrates how disease
characteristics and farmer
behaviors, attitudes, and
knowledge interact.

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 Diagram of workflow
Bidirectional, immediate communication between science
(disease diagnosis and control) and practice (grower’s
observations and needs)

CKW
•Inexpensive (on site)
•Trusted by farmers
•Time effective
•Give and get info from farmer
•More reliable information

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 Where did we work?

Uganda
Mbale District
Bushenyi District

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1442 surveys in 2 months in Bushenyi district

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1549 surveys in 2 months in Mbale district

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Samples taken by the 19 CKWs in Bushenyi

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Fusarium wilt in Bushenyi district

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BXW in Mbale district

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BBTV in Bushenyi district

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Follow up of suspected results

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 Wealth of socio-economic data

Farmer knowledge on banana diseases

Bunchy Top virus

Fusarium wilt

Banana Bacterial wilt

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

Bushenyi Mbale

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Achievements:
• Wealth of validated and geo-referenced
data (2991 surveys)
• 38 CKWs comprehensively trained
• Awareness of +3000 farmers increased
through CKW training via manual
• Adoption of ‘new’ technology and
demonstrated its effectiveness

Proposal to scale out this pilot to a greater

area and incorporate coffee and cassava

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