Cassava virus spreads, wiping out crops
JOHANNESBURG — Scientists say a disease destroying entire crops of cassava has spread out of East Africa into the heart of the continent, is attacking plants as far south as Angola and now threatens to move west into Nigeria, the world’s biggest producer of the potato-like root that helps feed 500 million Africans.
“The extremely devastating results are already dramatic today but could be catastrophic tomorrow” if nothing is done to halt the Cassava Brown Streak Disease, scientist Claude Fauquet, co-founder of the Global Cassava Partnership for the 21st Century, said.
Africa, with a burgeoning population and debilitating food shortages, is losing 50 million tons a year of cassava to the disease, he said.
In Uganda, a new strain of the virus identified five years ago is destroying 45 percent of the national crop and up to 80 percent of harvests in some areas, according to a new survey, said Chris Omongo, an entomologist and cassava expert at Uganda’s National Crops Resources Research Institute.
“The new strain looks to us to be much more aggressive,” Omongo said.
Fauquet said one problem is that the virus attacks the tubers underground, so a farmer can husband his crop for up to 18 months and only realize when he goes to dig up the cassava that all his fields are infected.
The cassava disease is endemic along the Indian Ocean coast of East Africa, affecting Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique. The disease also is found in Burundi and Rwanda.
Fauquet said what is needed is a virus-free cassava seed. A meeting in Italy this week is hosting major funders including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, hoping to convince them of the importance of such a project.
Scientists have called cassava “the Rambo” of food crops, a singular food source expected to become even more productive as the Earth warms, resistant to drought and simply shutting down until rains come. Cassava can also be left in the ground and stored there, providing food security for lean times. Scientists look to cassava as the best bet for African farmers threatened by climate change.