CABI Supports Project To Help Smallholder Farmers Fight The Sweet Potato Weevil In Caribbean.

Krishak Jagat
2024.11.18

CABI is supporting a project to help smallholder farmers fight the sweet potato weevil (SPW) in Antigua and Barbuda, Jamaica, and St Lucia using environmentally friendly biological control agents as part of an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) plan.

Dr Belinda Luke, Global Team Leader, PlantwisePlus, provided training with Dr Elizabeth Johnson, from the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), to manage the pest which can cause up to 80 percent losses in yield.

The scientists focused on how to find strains of the most effective native entomopathogenic fungi (EPF) in the Caribbean islands for development and use as a biopesticide to augment biological control of sweet potato weevil (Cylas puncticollis).

Read more here.