AgroPages-First tomato leaf miner outbreak reported in South Africa-Agricultural news

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A pest that earlier this year devastated the Nigerian tomato crop has been detected for the first time in South Africa after hitching a ride from South America to Europe, then spreading to Asia and Africa, Reuters reported.

The tomato leaf miner, aka tuta absoluta, can ruin tomato and potato crops, the South African department of agriculture said on last Friday.

The outbreak was discovered on a tomato farm in eastern South Africa at a border post with neighboring Mozambique in the Kruger National Park.

Africa exported almost $800 million of tomatoes in 2015, or about 10 percent of the world’s total, according to the Geneva-based International Trade Centre. In 2013, the continent produced $6.9 billion worth of tomatoes, the Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates, according to Bloomberg.

More than 80 percent of tomato farms were attacked in May by the moths in parts of Nigeria, and the price of a single tomato rose by 400 percent to more about $0.71, African Business Magazine reported in July.

It was so bad that the government of the northern state of Kaduna declared a state of emergency.

“This pest is disastrous particularly for tomato production and food security in general,” South Africa’s agriculture department said in a statement, according to Reuters.

It has been reported in Kenya and Tanzania and was detected in Zambia in September, Reuters reported, raising the threat of infestation in surrounding countries.

Before the pest showed up South Africa, the risk was increasing, said Jan Hendrik Venter, a plant health early-warnings scientist at the South African Agriculture Ministry, in an e-mail to Bloomberg.

“Tuta has the potential to effectively eliminate tomato from the agricultural cycle,” said Richard Hopkins, head of pest behavior at the London-based University of Greenwich Natural Resources Institute.

Tuta damages fruit and kills plants as the moths lay eggs. The caterpillars burrow into leaves and stems, according to pest-management company Koppert BV. It can develop pesticide resistance in one season and being an alien species, has few natural predators outside South America. It does best in warm climates, and Africa has ideal conditions for it to produce up to 12 generations a year. Each female lays 260 eggs. It also affects potatoes, eggplants, peppers and tobacco, according to Bloomberg.

“The biggest challenge with this pest is that it can develop resistance to chemicals within a single season,” the South African Agriculture Department said.

Eradication of the insect is impossible but the threat can be contained and the tomato and potato industries are working with the government to come up with a plan of action, the department said, according to Reuters.

A South African firm said it has an eco-friendly solution — one that doesn’t involve chemicals sometimes banned in other countries — to help deal with pests like the dreaded tomato leaf miner moth.

South Africa-based EcoSolutions manages some of the largest bat and insect mitigation programs in the world, and says the Nigerian free-tailed bat (Chaerephon nigeriae) is an excellent candidate for controlling miner moths.

Jonathan Haw is one of three directors for Johannesburg-based EcoSolutions, which deals with moth and insect control by positioning bat houses for agriculture. The company has 19 employees with branches in Durban and Cape Town.

EcoSolutions describes itself as an integrated pest management company but uses no chemicals at all. “We want people to integrate bats,” Haw said in an AFKInsider interview. “Ideally we want companies to phase out use of chemicals completely.”