East Africa Biosecurity Project (SIDA) 2008-09
From Biosecwiki
Highlights - SIDA (2008-2009) support for Biosecurity and Surveillance in East Africa have provided funding for:
- support for cassava disease surveillance activities (cassava brown streak and cassava mosaic diseases), by consultants Akoroda and Okoth
- support to East African Phyosanitary Information Committee meeting (see EAPIC and specifically EAPIC 5 held in Kigali, March 2009)
- development of pest information management systems, and specifically enhancements to US system (PIMS)
- small scale surveillance pilot projects (where possible using handheld devices for data recording) - including planned work on Banana Bunchy Top Disease (and BXW), in collaboration with the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), National Agriculture Research Systems (NARS) and SADC (funding for a workshop on BBTV surveillance design in Kagera, Tanzania)
Extract from original concept note: Responding to Biosecurity threats - a proposal for enhancing surveillance networks for transboundary pests and diseases in East Africa (19 May 2008)
Contents |
Context/Background
1. Transboundary pests and diseases
Pests or diseases of plants or animals have periodically devastated crops, decimated livestock or poultry. Such threats to Biosecurity in food production represent a major potential risk to food security.
Many of the threats are transboundary in nature. Pests and diseases can move on prevailing winds or spread as natural coincidence of climatic conditions favour their spread. The spread can also be human mediated – either through trade or travel; people migrate by choice or to escape conflict or natural disaster, but in doing so may also carry tools, seeds or planting materials which are associated with heightened risk of spreading pests or diseases. They may also be accompanied by animals which may be carrying infection. In some cases, humans play a part in a disease cycle involving animals, insects and the environment, giving rise to particular zoonoses.
In recent years, a succession of plant diseases – major transboundary biosecurity threats – have originated in East Africa and spread to crops throughout the region, and beyond. These include three active threats affecting staple crops in the past 12-18 months - cereal stem rust (Ug99), Casava Mosaic Virus and Banana Xanthamonas Wilt – with an impact on food security.
2. Impact of Climate change
An already complex picture – the constantly evolving pest and disease situation affecting agriculture – is further complicated by the phenomenon of climate change. This contributes directly by spreading pests and disease further (extreme weather events); scientists also hypothesise that climate change will naturally modify environments for pests and hosts, and see hitherto unaffected (or uninfected) areas becoming subject to increased threat. This will also be matched in time by the movement of predators of these pests.
There may also be secondary effects of climate change. Large scale flooding or persistent drought may also contribute to large scale human migration, which in turn can act as a driver to spread pests or disease. Also, it now appears likely that extreme weather was responsible for the spread of Ug99 strain of cereal stem rust (which was first recognised in Uganda) from the Horn of Africa to Iran in early 2007.
3. Data management and the need for early warning
Regional early warning is important for combating pests and diseases on the ground. However, this is often complicated by trade or domestic security considerations. Where pest or disease status concern traded commodities, there is a reluctance to communicate early for fear of a reaction on the part of trading partners; admitting that a situation is serious and possibly beyond the control of domestic authorities – whether the product is traded or not – is seen as an admission of failure.
If it were possible to minimise such political considerations – and there are precedents such as regional collaboration on desert locust control - what would help is for technical (plant protection) specialists to have early warning of pests or diseases affecting domestic crops, and at some pre-agreed threshold, managing the controlled issue of warning messages to neighbouring countries that may also be at risk. In the best case scenario, international early warning could allow neighbours to take preventive measures
4. Partnership and FAO’s role
As stated above, Biosecurity issues in the region of East Africa are relatively well-known. A number of projects are currently active across the region, collecting ad hoc data, some of which are sponsored by FAO. An important aspect of this proposal is to draw on existing data collection activities, and by doing so, developing a common approach for exchange of data and including additional data, potentially enhance these original projects.
Ultimately international early warning may be based on a secure common international platform, fed by well-managed national data collection surveillance systems (“system” in terms of information and communication technologies – ICT - and of a set of surveillance practices), hosted by an appropriate body within the region. One essential partner already active in this area could be the InterAfrican PhytoSanitary Council (IAPSC).
Another key partnership – on a technical level - will be with the Kenyan Plant Health Service (KEPHIS) which is emerging as a notable centre of excellence within the region for international phytosanitary capacity building, currently supported with WTO Standards and Trade Development Facility (STDF) funding. STDF is primarily concerned with trade facilitation. However, improving domestic pest and disease surveillance is also an important aspect of this centre’s work, and in order to maximise the benefit to the region, open collaboration will be sought (agreement in principle is already in place), particularly when it comes to training on approaches to surveillance.
Overall, in such a situation FAO can play a vital convening role across the region, and help establish a common platform for surveillance and early warning. In the early stages, as this platform becomes a reality, FAO can act as a usefully neutral player in transmission of warning messages and also be a source of technical advice. FAO’s history of involvement with the Regional Commissions for Desert Locust Control is particularly pertinent. The extent to which the participating countries would wish FAO to play a longer term role, and if so the nature of such a role, can only be decided as a result of experience gained during the project.
Objectives
As part of the FAO Programme Committee-endorsed International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) Capacity Building Strategy, which was approved by Council/Conference, November 2007, the objective of this initiative is to create a platform which will facilitate regional (intergovernmental) cooperation on pest and disease surveillance in East Africa. The initial countries proposed to be covered are covering Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. Neighbouring countries such as Zambia and Mozambique are also known to be interested in improving coordination of plant pest and disease surveillance.
The initiative will also attempt to draw together parallel crop or emergency-specific surveillance work funded through a diverse set of projects, at local and national level. To illustrate:
• Major projects could include the Great Lakes Cassava Initiative (being implemented by CRS in some of the countries included in this initiative), various BXW control related activities across the region, and new initiatives on fruit flies (notably bactrocera invadens )
• Small scale surveillance-specific activities include the ongoing FAO (Norway-funded) pliot project to test cell phone technology in pest and disease surveillance in the Tanzania-Uganda border region to the west of Lake Victoria (the purpose being to gather real time data and to help target extension officers’ work in districts with serious infrastructure constraints and suffering from Banana and Cassava diseases).
• Regional/national initiatives would include the work of the informal ad hoc “East African Phytosanitary Information Committee” (EAPIC), which has supported the development of national pest-related databases in several countries in the region, for five staple crops. Another similar initiative through the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture with the University of Ohio aims to create a plant disease diagnostic network
The initiative will involve two distinct target groups.
• At one level, the initiative will share informal (unvalidated) observations from progressive farmers, extension workers and NGO project staff. This will remain national data.
• At a second level, informal observations will be confirmed by trained surveillance specialists (researchers, scientists); or specially conducted survey campaigns will report findings. Once confirmed, parties essentially agree to share information with counterparts in other collaborating countries.
Activities
The objectives will be achieved progressively by:
• (at NPPO level), formalising collaboration on exchange of information (based on ad hoc agreements so far through EAPIC), and determining principles for governance arrangements relating to information collected. For instance, information systems are being developed by University of North Carolina for EAPIC which will run on servers located within the region; local capacity does not yet exist for system management/ support tasks, and this is currently provided from the US.
• convening a stakeholder meeting to review capacity to undertake surveillance for pests and diseases of main staple crops across the region, and identify existing sources and initiatives which could be brought under a regional information-sharing umbrella project, and plan future surveillance activities;
• using forthcoming (eg November 2008) EAPIC meeting (s) to finalise technical (system) requirements
• providing training to stakeholders in surveillance techniques and data management;
• assisting in the design and implementation of field surveillance activities by local competent authorities (with the overall aim of making results known to other members of the network);
• developing systems to store and analyse surveillance data nationally, and potentially share with other partners;
• undertaking targeted surveillance campaigns on plant pests and diseases with significant impact on food security;
• periodically reviewing emerging surveillance results (as required)
• reviewing overall impact within 2 years, and where useful lessons have been learnt using them to prepare guidelines for other regions on improving monitoring in the case of plant pests and diseases
Once a number of surveillance campaigns have been run, and data is available on secure access to the panel members, this could be used to garner political support for long term continuation of some kind of central platform, which might be housed at an appropriate institution within the region.
Key stakeholders and/or beneficiaries
The key stakeholders in this are the national plant protection organisations responsible for pest and disease control. Other relevant regional bodies with a stake would be bodies such as the African Union. Other international stakeholders will include the main disaster management/emergency response agencies. Within each country other stakeholders will include the agricultural extension and national agricultural research services across the region, which play a vital role in both data collection and dissemination of warning messages and information on control options. Farmers will be both ultimate beneficiaries of improved surveillance networks – hopefully protected to a higher degree from pest incursions or disease outbreaks – and the first line of unvalidated data gathering.
