Farmers say insect destroying main crop in south

Farmers in Guinea-Bissau say an insect is ravaging plantations of cashew, the country’s main export crop, and they want the government to do something about it. Government and UN agricultural experts are set to go to the affected area next week to assess the impact of the problem. “In a matter of hours [the insect] can transform a plantation into a barren field,” said Embalo Mama Samba, head of the national farmers’ association. Mama Samba said the green insect, attacking only during the night, has destroyed more than 50 hectares in the southern Quinara region of the small and impoverished West African country. Farmers’ groups, who say they first signalled the problem to local authorities in September but saw no response, recently warned they would stage a protest if the government did not act. Government agriculture officials and representatives of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation met on Thursday and are scheduled next week to visit the area to identify the beetle that villagers say is wreaking havoc, officials told IRIN. The government has sent a sample of the insect to a research centre in Niger for identification, according to Lourenco Abreo of the national agricultural protection department. FAO officials are quick to point out that it is not locusts attacking the cashew trees. Guinea-Bissau, heavily dependent on agriculture, was among several countries in the region that suffered crop- and pasture-devouring locust swarms in late 2004 and early 2005. Norbert Dazogbo, FAO representative in Guinea Bissau, said the impact of the reported insects is not yet clear. “We will look into this to find out just what it is and to measure the economic impact.” Cashew production is the main source of foreign earnings in the country of about 1.3 million people, bringing in about US $60 million per year. Alanso Fati, who heads a coalition of farmers’ organisations, says there is a “grave risk” for people across the south of the country. “Cashew is our diamond in Guinea-Bissau.”