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| Development
of Biopesticides for Grasshopper and Locust Control in Sub-Saharan
Africa |
Year: 1997-2003
Grant #: USAID Africa Bureau Grant
AOT-G-00-97-00386-00
Grant Amount: $1,999,640
Location:
Senegal, Ethiopia, Kenya, France, Madagascar
Developing biopesticides for grasshoppers and locusts using insect
pathogens found naturally in the African environment is the goal of
this project. The commercialization of these biopesticides will provide
an environmentally-friendly alternative to synthetic chemical pesticides
in Africa. There are five technical objectives for this project: capacity
building, promotion of registration guidelines, product development
and improvement, production, and market evaluation and development.
During the first five years, a germplasm center was established at
ICIPE in Kenya as well as two new insect pathology laboratories in
Senegal and Ethiopia. Over 150 insect parasitic fungi from grasshoppers
and African soils have been isolated. Screening of these isolates
to find candidates for biopesticide products is being carried out
at these African laboratories. This project has supported activities
that led to the adoption of regional biopesticide registration guidelines
for nine countries in West Africa, and continues to support capacity
building for developing registration frameworks in Eastern Africa.
Virginia Tech is the Management Entity for this project, working with
a consortium of U.S. and African partners. They are: the Biological
Control Research Unit of the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique
(INRA), France; CERES Locustox, Senegal; the Desert Locust Control
Organization for Eastern Africa (DLCO-EA) Ethiopia; the Direction
de la Protection des Végétaux; ACDI VOCA, Washington
DC; the International Center for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE)
Kenya; and US Department of Agriculture's European Biological Control
Laboratory.
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