Abstract:
It is my great pleasure to address the 2nd Annual Conference of the Crop
Protection Society of Ethiopia which is being held at a time when our country
is faced with severe food shortages caused by drought and exacerbated by
agricultural pests.
Agricultural pests pose a serious threat to crop production in our country.
Although no systematic loss assessment studies have been undertaken, the
annual pre- and post-harvest crop losses are estimated to be at least 30 percent
or the equivalent of two million tons of grain. For a country like ours, where
millions of people are suffering from lack of adequate food supply, such food
losses cannot be tolerated.
As you are all aware the pest problems in our country might be divided
into four main groups (Classes)
(1) the migratory pests that impact serious losses across national boundaries,
and thus require both national and multinational action,
(2) sedentary pests that have periodic upsurges that are beyond the capacity
of on-farm control,
(3) pests that may be introduced either intentionally or accidentally and which
require special research efforts to develop resistant varieties, biological
controls and farm level control programmes and
(4) the usually indigenous pest complexes whose control are normally an onfarm
responsibility with government assistance through technical advises
and services based on research findings.
It is clear that the class 1 and class 2 pests require both national and
international capacity for early warning based on monitoring and international
assistance when local capacity proves inadequate. The class 3 pests usually
require the assistance of international efforts either through technology transfer
or research. The class 4 pests require adequate national research and extension
capacity to provide farmers with the necessary control information and the development of the required input and credit infrastructure for the farmer to
carry out the necessary control action.
