Banana bacterial wilt being managed but at what cost?

trueBy Isaac Ongu

Banana bacterial wilt, a disease caused by Xanthomonas bacteria, is so devastating to banana and extremely burdensome and costly to a farmer. It attacks the banana plant turning its sap into “pus” that oozes out when cut.

In extreme cases, the plant wilts before fruiting and incase it gets to fruit, it ripens before it matures for a farmer to reap from sweat. It was first recorded in Uganda in 2001 but been in Ethiopia in the 1960’s. This wilt attacks all cultivars of banana from the beloved Matooke to the sweet types causing up to $2.2b estimated annual loss.

To a farmer, uprooting the infected plants, chopping it and burning it; cutting all the male buds; disinfecting the knife used for pruning with JIK (detergent) after every plant; the byelaw for those who have never associated laws and fines with agriculture reminding the old of the colonial mentality of forcing farmers to grow “cash crops” are all burdensome.

To the Government, sh5b banana bacterial wilt action plan that was launched in April 2013 in Mbarara district by the Agriculture’s minister who in his latest address on the status of Agriculture said additional sh4b Uganda is required for continued effort to combat the disease would have been saved and reinvested in the sector.

Last week, I interacted with a banana farmer, Aruho Tomson from Bubare subcounty in Mbarara who shared his experiences in managing the banana bacterial wilt. He said the wilt attacked his banana plantation in 2010 and wiped close to four acres in one year.

The first control strategy required uprooting the whole stool that has a diseased plant and later farmers began to uproot only the infected plants. He said later on the use of JIK to disinfect farm implements as a method of controlling spread was introduced including byelaws where farmers were to cut off the male buds or get fined.

All this measures reduced the incidence drastically, for example, Aruho attested to reduction from 15-30 infections every day to only about 40 in three months. This is reflected in the Agricultures ministerial policy statement 2014/2015 that shows banana export increased from 35tonnes in the first half of 2012/2013 to 66tonnes in the first half of 2013/2014.

This reduction is remarkable but the question that should be asked is at what cost? From Government investing billions of shillings in media campaigns to a farmer who has to buy JIK or pay fine, to a woman who requires three different knives to cut banana leaves for cooking because she can’t use the same knife to cut another leaf on a different plant.

Dr. Leena Tirupathi, one of the scientists that have been researching on Banana bacterial wilt in her article in the New Vision, on whether biotechnology can save Uganda’s banana crop pointed out the need to have the solutions to the wilt before it destabilises the food security in the region. She confirmed having banana lines which are 100% resistant in three cycles, implying suckers from suckers were 100% resistant.

The next step she said is carrying out multi-locational trials before the resistant banana can be availed to farmers. As she correctly stated, without the law, some of these final steps may not be realized and that would mean farmers will continue to buy JIK reducing on their profits and government will continue to spend more money in managing the disease instead of investing that money in Agricultural Research.

The Writer in an agriculturist and consultant on agricultural information dissemination