Professor Chris Gilligan, Director of Research in the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, has been looking at the problems of controlling pests and diseases which attack crops, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Whilst some of these are familiar, others are new and now appearing for the first time. All of them, however, are major threats to food production and the livelihoods of the farmers who depend on their crops.
These pests and pathogens pose a serious threat in that they ravage boundaries and borders and can sweep across vast swathes of the African continent in weeks, or, in the “right” weather conditions, days. Although some pesticides and fungicides can control and even eradicate these invaders, they are expensive and often not available in the quantities needed at the time when they would be most effective.