Combating Pests without Pesticides: The Miracle of Bilogical Control

IFAD is a strong supporter of environmentally friendly technologies for the control of agricultural and livestock pests. It has initiated and supported some of the most effective and well-known biological control campaigns. Acknowledged as a pioneering donor, IFAD has been the catalyst in successful campaigns involving a large number of donor partners who joined in the deployment of innovative large-scale pest-control technologies. These have either reduced pest infestations to economic insignificance or have resulted in total eradication: a rare achievement measured in purely economic and biophysical terms. Given the Fund's track record as a major donor in biocontrol, developing countries continually seek IFAD's assistance in initiating and helping finance, through donor consortia, eradication campaigns against insect pests.

IFAD has assisted in mobilizing more than USD 125 million in donor funds to support the control of serious pests and diseases.

IFAD's approach has been to help detect potential pest-induced disasters as early as possible and to identify, design and support timely, cost-effective and environmentally sustainable integrated-pest-management strategies. These strategies help the rural poor avoid crop, fruit, vegetable and animal production losses.

Supporting Innovative Pest-Control Technologies Influencing the Behaviour of the Desert Locust: The Promise of Preventive Versus Curative Approaches

The desert locust is a relatively insignificant pest in its solitary phase, in which it is a harmless grasshopper. The locust becomes a major pest when, stimulated by favourable climatic and other factors after a long dry spell, it begins to swarm. IFAD has supported pioneering research work on biochemical signals (known as semiochemicals), led by the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), that has led to successful approaches that confine the pest to its solitary state, thus avoiding swarm formation and providing a potential global solution to the locust problem.

The IFAD-led donor consortium, which includes the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Swiss International Development Agency (SIDA) and the Arab Fund for Social and Economic Development (AFESD), is supporting the programme that has led to a scientific breakthrough in the development of a viable biorational, preventive locust-control strategy.

A New Approach to Controlling Locusts

The programme has so far achieved a high degree of success and a great deal of international recognition. It has identified and investigated the roles of semiochemicals that mediate in the complex behavioral dynamics of the locust and prevent the gregarization and swarming of locusts in breeding areas. The research has produced important results for influencing the location in which the female locust lays eggs (oviposition), manipulating sexual attraction between male and female locusts and retarding maturation with pheromones.

Controlling Fruit Flies: Rehabilitating the Livelihood Systems of Smallholder Fruit Producers through Control of the Carambola Fruit Fly

The carambola fruit fly is a relatively recent introduction into the Western hemisphere. This fruit fly is recognized as one of the most serious among the tropical fruit pests, reported to infest about 30 host species, comprising eight cultivated and 22 wild fruits.

The pest attacks, among others, important fruits such as the starfruit or carambola, the Curaçao or Java apple, mango, guava, West Indian cherry, the Sapodilla, etc. Other infested fruits include the tropical almond, Suriname cherry, cashew, grapefruit, orange and mandarin.

The deployment of the male annihilation technique (MAT) is already showing results (see charts).

MAT uses a powerful male attractant, methyl eugenol, mixed with a bioinsecticide and strategically distributed among host trees. Male flies attracted to the lure are trapped and annihilated by the bioinsecticide. The male population is reduced to the point at which reproduction is no longer possible, leading eventually to eradication. MAT involves sequential aerial dispersal of fibre blocks through a precision dispensing machine fixed to an aircraft equipped with instrumentation capable of interacting via satellite in order to maintain grid position. Release flights are conducted under daylight visual flight rules, normally at 450-900 m above ground level. The flights distribute the blocks along flight lanes, separated by 100 m, that cover the treatment area in a grid pattern.

Jackson Trap – cotton wick is imbedded in the trap. It is dipped in the sexual attractant methyl eugenol, which only attracts male flies. During the flight to reach the wick, the males become caught by a special glue. The trap is used only for monitoring the male population.

McPhail Trap – A food attractant (protein hydrolysate or fruit juice) is used in this trap and it attracts both females and males. After feeding on the solution, the flies are prevented from flying out of the trap – crashing against the walls and sinking in the solution.

Carambola Fruit Fly – Trap Catches, before application of MAT – In Apura and Wageningen in Suriname (on the north coast of South America), before the use of MAT, the number of flies captured exceeded 15 males per trap per month.

Carambola Fruit Fly Catches, 3rd Quarter 97 - After releasing blocks impregnated with methyl eugenol and the bioinsecticide, the fruit fly population was eradicated from the treated areas. In the untreated area, Saramacca, the number of captured flies remains high.

Launching the Africa-Wide Biological Control Programme

The combating of the cassava mealybug in Africa represents the world’s largest and most ambitious, successful biological control programme in recent times. The success of the programme is reflected by the international recognition it has received – it is associated with the 1996 World Food Prize and the King Baudouin Award.

The pest was introduced accidently into Africa, where it was threatening food security throughout the cassava belt from West to East Africa including Madagascar. The search for a natural predator of the mealybug took place in Latin America, from where the cassava was first imported into Africa some 300 years ago.

More than 200 million people were about to lose their staple food across some of the poorest parts of Africa. In response, IFAD funded an adventurous search to discover a natural predator against the cassava mealybug in South America. The large-scale programme that followed involved the introduction of the natural enemy from Latin America into Africa through quarantine in Amsterdam, mass-rearing/multiplication at IITA in Nigeria and Cotonou, and aerial release in all infested countries of Africa.

It has been estimated that at least 20 million lives have been saved, which with a total cost for the project of USD 20 million adds up to having saved a life per dollar invested. The economic return of the project has been investigated in great detail. The latest study shows a cost-benefit ratio for the project of 1-200. This is a conservative estimate, limited to a period of only 20 years, although the mealybug will now remain under control for as long as cassava will be planted.

Search for Enemies of the Cassava Green Mite Ends Successfully

IFAD is also supporting other important initiatives against equally devastating cassava pests such as the cassava green mite. Successsful IFAD-supported research has led to the discovery of the phytoseiid Typhlodromalus aripo, which was introduced from Brazil and is now bringing the cassava green mite under control in southern West Africa and locally in eastern and southern Africa.

More than 25 nations and multilateral agencies came forward and pledged resources for the programme – a demonstration of international solidarity and commitment in the face of an emergency of this nature. The programme averted a serious threat to our environment and to the livelihood of millions of vulnerable African farmers and herdsmen.

Using Environmentally-Friendly Control Against Pest of Pulse Crops in South Asia

Millions of southern Asia's poor are now living in the shadow of a pulse-crop crisis triggered by pest attacks. In India, millions of poor farmers in the semi-arid tropics of the Deccan Plateau risk not meeting their household nutritional requirements. Both the urban and rural poor, whose dietary protein intake continues to rely on pulses, will need to drastically reduce pulse consumption levels as pulse prices rise in the face of production shortfalls.

Among the pests, the pod borer, Helicoverpa armigera, is of particular significance (see slide).

The Helicoverpa is present in Africa and across Asia, and is the single most important insect pest in the agriculture of southern Asia. It attacks a wide range of crops including cotton, tomatoes, chillies and sunflower in addition to pigeonpea and chickpea. It has become resistant to a range of insecticides, resulting in increased production costs and increased yield losses.

In bad Helicoverpa years' farmers produce insufficient seed to warrant harvesting their crops. Crop losses in pigeonpea due to Helicoverpa, alone, were recently estimated at more than USD 420 million annually. In chickpea, pod damage ranges from 0 to 84% depending on location. Worldwide losses in chickpea have been estimated at nearly USD 330 million annually.

Slides show a number of IPM solutions, including the use of biopesticides, botanicals and the nucleo polyhydrosis virus (NPV), which is proving effective against the pests.

Unlocking the Potential of Smallholder Livestock Production: The Challenge of Addressing Destructive Pests and Disease

Animals make a significant contribution to nutrition in sub-Saharan Africa. Meeting the future demand for meat and milk depends entirely on improving livestock productivity.

Animal diseases sharply reduce livestock productivity. Annual losses of USD 4 billion represent appproximately 25% of the total value of livestock production in sub-Saharan Africa.

Trypanosomiasis – or sleeping sickness – is the single most important constraint to animal production in Africa. It is caused by the tsetse fly.

IFAD is financing promising research on the sustainable management of trypanosomiasis and the tsetse fly.

The tsetse trap is based on using a fly attractant that lures the tsetse. IFAD-supported research at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) led to the discovery that the tsetse locates its host through the odour of cattle urine. ICIPE has done cutting-edge research that has identified a chemical compound that releases the same odour. This has proven successful in developing the tsetse trapping technology.

IFAD and its Partners Diffuse an Ecological Time Bomb: The New World Screwworm

The New World screwworm is known to be one of the most destructive livestock insect pests in the Americas. The presence of the New World screwworm fly in North Africa was confirmed in late 1988. The fly, which had never before been reported outside the American continent, is considered the most threatening insect pest of livestock in the western hemisphere. It could have spread rapidly to areas with suitable climatic and vegetational conditions in the eastern hemisphere and caused damage to livestock, wildlife and perhaps even human populations in Africa and the Near East. Eradication of the fly has been achieved successfully in North and Central America only through the sterile insect technique (SIT): aerially releasing a large number of factory-sterilized screwworm insects over endemic and outbreak areas to achieve control and subsequent eradication.

In an emergency response, IFAD acted quickly to design and support a pilot biological control programme for the eradication of the fly, implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The programme was initiated in December 1989 as a precursor to a large-scale eradication campaign. Besides testing the feasibility of transferring SIT to North Africa and its efficacy within the region's environment, the pilot programme included: support for strengthening livestock movement control and quarantine operations; assistance for a public-awareness campaign and development of logistical support in preparation for the large-scale eradication campaign. The foundation laid during the pilot programme and the fly-release operations that began in December 1990 facilitated success in the near-eradication of the New World screwworm population from North Africa by early March 1991. By the time full-scale operations started, the campaign was so successful that it had almost achieved its main objective – the eradication of the screwworm from North Africa, in record time.

The large-scale programme served to further protect the area from the regeneration of the screwworm population and from any residual focuses of infestation that may have remained after the pilot programme had achieved an advanced level of eradication.

The successful execution of the programme involved a very large number of participants that responded to IFAD's call to contribute resources in cash and kind. The implementation of the USD 55 million programme depended not only on the mobilization and smooth channelling of financial resources, but on the carefully orchestrated inputs of scientists, technicians, administrators and implementing agents, all working in a united effort and on a scale of unprecedented magnitude.

The world's most successful eradication programme in recent decades was the result of a remarkable international effort behind the intervention. It represented the first time that so many partners of IFAD in the international community, many of them with diverse agendas and conflicting political leanings, came together under a common mandate to combat the potentially most devastating pest of the century.

More than 25 nations and multilateral agencies came forward and pledged resources for the programme – a demonstration of international solidarity and commitment in the face of an emergency of this nature. The programme averted a serious threat to our environment and to the livelihoods of millions of vulnerable African farmers and herdsmen.