“Plant Doctors” Fighting Hunger in Kenya
Every year across the developing world an enormous percentage of crops are thrown away due to disease, which contributes to hunger. But what if those sick plants could be cured? In Kenya, when there are sick plants, they call in the “Plant Doctors.”
The Food and Agriculture Administration defines the major developing world’s food crops in order of volume as rice, wheat, maize, cassava, fresh vegetables and sweet potatoes. Other essential crops are sugarcane, oil palm fruits and soybeans. With approximately 4.47 billion people out of the global population of 5.77 billion living in the developing world, the health of these plants are immensely important to food security.
Crops grown in the developing world are more commonly used to feed the public rather than for export. Because of this, volume is lower, there are much lower input costs so pesticides/herbicides are used less extensively or are less effective, and far less inorganic fertilizer is used. Additionally in developing countries, the plant varieties are usually not improved, resistant or higher yielding. The effect of viruses on agriculture in poor nations is more significant and less food grown as a result.
Plant Doctors are highly trained plant health advisers educated in the science of botany and global plant health who take research from the laboratory to the fields to help farmers eradicate diseases plaguing their crops. They also run Plant Clinics, where farmers can take a sample plant to find diagnosis of the problem and give best-practice advice. The plant clinic also provides a meeting place for Plant Doctors and the farmers they aim to serve.
The Plant Clinic works like a doctor’s office visit. When a farmer has a problem with sick plants, the sample plant can be brought in to a Plant Clinic, which operates in local farmers markets. A trained Plant Doctor will then diagnose the problem and recommend an affordable, locally available solution that the farmer can use to manage it. If the farmer follows the plant doctor’s advice; losses are reduced and productivity increases, increasing food to sell and feed his or her family.
Miriam Otipa is a Plant Doctor. She is the Principal Research Scientist & Head of the Plant Pathology Department, Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization. She posted a blog at Feed the Future about her experiences and the importance of Plant Doctors. She says in her blog that in Kenya, greenhouse farmers routinely lose between 80-100 percent of their tomato crops to pests and diseases.
As Miriam Otipa explains in her blog, it was while growing up in a small Kenyan Village she became interested in career in science. She turned her curiosity and childhood questions into solutions for struggling farmers with ailing crops.
According to Miriam Otipa, success in curing diseased plants is spreading across Kenya. Through the PlantWise program, supported by an international nonprofit called CABI, she has trained over 140 agricultural extension staff to operate 89 Plant Clinics in 13 counties across Kenya and has jointly trained 45 farmers as Plant Nurses, who regularly visit farms, assist with plant examinations, and encourage farmers to use nearby Plant Clinics.
In developing nations, food insecurity is a sad consequence of global poverty. Plant Doctors can help treat sick plants improving agricultural yield and increase the food on hungry people’s tables.
– Jason Zimmerman