Food security threat as banana blight looms

Food security in Burundi is under threat due to fears that an incurable banana disease, which has already been reported in several neighbouring countries, could sweep across the nation, an official of an agricultural research institute has said. "Worst of all, the bacterial disease attacks all varieties of banana crops," said Melchior Nahimana, the director-general of the Livestock and Agricultural Research Institute of the Great Lakes in the central province of Gitega. Banana is one of Burundi's main subsistence crops; cassava is the staple. A disease called "mosaic" also affects cassava and agricultural experts are in the process of developing a more disease-resistant strain. Banana is rich in potassium; vitamins A, B, B6 and C; thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, calcium, floric acid, magnesium and some traces of iron and zinc. In Burundi, it grows throughout the country, except in the western lowlands of Imbo. "The banana crop comes first in terms of production on the national level," Nahimana said. The threat of this bacterial disease, known as Xanthonomas wilt, comes as the country's banana crop faces several other diseases, such as the cone-shaped multicelled macroconidia Fusarium, which also causes the crop to wilt. Burundians consume the banana in different forms; whole as a fruit, as part of a fruit salad, cooked, made into juice and banana wine. "Banana is always part of my meals; I eat it three times a day: in the morning as a breakfast, at lunch and at supper," Jérémie Manirakiza, a resident of Gitega, said on Thursday. Another resident, Philippe Barahemana, said: "I don't know if I will ever get a replacement for banana. I eat it twice a day, at lunchtime and at supper. After farming activities, I take the local brew from banana fruits as a refreshment." Nahimana said the Xanthonomas wilt had already affected banana crops in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Tanzania and Rwanda. In Africa, he said, the disease was first discovered in Ethiopia. It later spread to Uganda's Mukono District in 2001; and was reported in the DRC in 2003; in Rwanda's Gisenyi region in 2005; and in January this year in Tanzania. "It's an alert that we are making, and the most endangered areas to be affected first are provinces located on the border with the DRC, Rwanda and Tanzania," Nahimana said. Those provinces include Bubanza, Bujumbura Rural and Cibitoke, which border the DRC; Kayanza, Ngozi, Muyinga and Kirundo, which border Rwanda; and Rutana and Makamba, which border Tanzania. He said the warning was being made through provincial directors of agriculture and livestock, who were supposed to "talk directly to the public and sensitise people on the new conduct in a bid to counter the disease". "The other ways to counter the disease would be so costly that Burundians could not afford them," Nahimana said. These counter measures include the provision of plastics sheets to cover all banana trees in plantations and the cutting banana male shoots. However, Nahimana said: "Cutting banana male shoots with cutlasses already used in the cutting of an infected banana regime or tree will automatically contaminate and contribute to the spread of the disease." Insects, utensils used to cut the infected banana parts like knives and cutlasses, and the exchange of vegetal materials, also disseminate the bacterial disease. Nahimana said more resistant banana species were under analysis and trial in Uganda at a branch of Taiwan's International Institute for Tropical Agriculture. Other international agricultural organisations, working with Burundi's livestock and agricultural institute to develop more disease-resistant species include the African Agriculture Technology Foundation and the Biosciences for Eastern and Central Africa, both based in Nairobi, Kenya. However, Nahimana said the new and more resistant banana seeds would not be available until 2010.