CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
by Taye Babaleye, Nigeria, January 2000
THEME = ECOLOGY
An environmentally sound biological control product to check the destructive effects of desert locusts and grasshoppers has been developed by scientists at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), based in Cotonou, Benin Republic, in collaboration with CABI Bioscience, in the United Kingdom, Le Comité Permanent Inter-Etat de Lutte contre la Sécheresse au Sahel, German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) and several national programs.
This novel bio-pesticide is based on a naturally occurring fungus, Metarhizium anisopliae var. acridum, which kills insects. Contrary to chemical insecticides that are toxic both to humans and the environment, the new bio-pesticide is highly specific to locusts and grasshoppers. According to Dr. Peter Neuenschwander, director of IITA's Plant Health Management Division in Cotonou, "one major advantage of the new product to farmers is, that it is not toxic to humans, and leaves non- target organisms unharmed." The bio-pesticide has now been registered for mass production by two companies, in South Africa and France, under the name "Green Muscle".
This means that the product will be available on the market, for farmers and Plant Protection agencies to buy for application for grasshopper and locust control. Furthermore, the product has been listed among others, as the only product which is causing low risk to the environment, and little risk for human health under normal use by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
During the period 1986-1989, donor communities spent US $275 million on the control of locust and grasshoppers, while about 1.5 million litres of insecticides were applied during the period.
Unlike chemical insecticides, "Green Muscle" is slow acting. It does not kill locusts and grasshoppers instantly. Rather, the fungus spores penetrate the exo-skeleton (the hard cover of insect body) to destroy the inner organs and thereby killing the insect slowly. The insects die after a period of 5 to 12 days. They first fall sick and gradually become dull and later drop dead. The carcasses release new fungal spores which are like the product, infecting other living locusts and grasshoppers. Contact either with an infested insect or the spot where it dies, will become mortally dangerous for any living locust or grasshopper.
Locusts have been known since biblical times as destructive insects that precipitate famine as a result of their ravaging effects on farmers' fields, by completely eating up green leaves of crops and plants. Locust invasions occur irregularly, and can potentially invade a fifth of the earth's land surface, ranging from West Africa to India, where their appearance often spell doom to millions of farmers that depend on crops such as millet and sorghum.
"Grasshoppers are less spectacular but on the long run probably as serious as desert locusts, and both insect pests need the similar conditions to develop", says Jürgen Langewald, an entomologist who coordinates the Biological Locust and Grasshopper Control Project (LUBILOSA) project at IITA.
According to Langewald, the project focuses on the development of beneficial micro-organisms as biological control agents for grasshoppers and locusts, because the grasshoppers and locusts are too mobile and reproduce too fast to be readily controlled by the classical biological control approach, using predators or parasitoid natural enemies.
"One of the principal successes of LUBILOSA is to show that the requirement for high environmental humidity can be avoided, by spraying fungal spores in oil, which makes the product suitable for the use under very dry desert conditions", says Dr. Langewald. The LUBILOSA's Project Coordinator emphasizes that a big advantage of "Green Muscle" is the long persistence of the spray residue on the treated vegetation, and depending on environmental conditions, the spores can survive for weeks after spray, making life unsafe for locusts and grasshoppers on the field, because as earlier mentioned, contact with the pesticide residue will normally make the insect to become sick and later die.
Swarms of locusts often devastate crops across the Sahelian regions of Africa, threatening the food supply for millions of people, while the control methods usually centre on the use of chemical pesticides which kill not only locusts, but also destroy a wide range of non-target organisms, including fresh water life and birds. The storage and application of these toxic chemicals are equally dangerous to badly trained farmers who form the majority of rural dwellers in sub-Saharan Africa.
The dynamics of locusts in particular, indicate that a swarm of the insect pest may contain as much as 50 million insects per square kilometre. Its virulent effects are thus devastating! A major swarm of locust can weigh 100,000 tons and eat that much of green vegetation per day.
The development of "Green Muscle" bio-pesticide by LUBILOSA scientists and their collaborators, is therefore a major breakthrough for farmers who are at the receiving end of the attack of the insect pests in sub-Saharan Africa.
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