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Farmers’ knowledge, attitudes and practices towards management of cassava pests and diseases in forest transition and Guinea savannah agro-ecological zones of Ghana
Background: Cassava is a major staple root crop in Ghana, which serves as a food security and an income generating crop for farming families. In spite of its importance, the crop is plagued with biotic factors such as pests and diseases, resulting in yield and income reductions. Methods: Farmers’ kn...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
F1000 Research Limited
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8012878/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33842843 http://dx.doi.org/10.12688/gatesopenres.13114.2 |
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author | Nsiah Frimpong, Benedicta Oppong, Allen Prempeh, Ruth Appiah-Kubi, Zipporah Abrokwah, Linda A. B. Mochiah, Moses N. Lamptey, Joseph Manu-Aduening, Joseph Pita, Justin |
author_facet | Nsiah Frimpong, Benedicta Oppong, Allen Prempeh, Ruth Appiah-Kubi, Zipporah Abrokwah, Linda A. B. Mochiah, Moses N. Lamptey, Joseph Manu-Aduening, Joseph Pita, Justin |
author_sort | Nsiah Frimpong, Benedicta |
collection | PubMed |
description | Background: Cassava is a major staple root crop in Ghana, which serves as a food security and an income generating crop for farming families. In spite of its importance, the crop is plagued with biotic factors such as pests and diseases, resulting in yield and income reductions. Methods: Farmers’ knowledge, attitudes and practices towards cassava pest and disease management were investigated. A mixed research questionnaire was used to collect both qualitative and quantitative data from 94 cassava farm households across two major cassava growing agro-ecologies. Results: Using descriptive statistics, parametric and non-parametric analysis, our study revealed that farmers’ knowledge on cassava pests was high but low for diseases. Whiteflies ( Bemisia tabaci Gennadius), grasshoppers ( Zonocerus variegatus), aphids ( Aphis gossypii Glover), mealybugs ( Phenacoccus manihoti), termites ( Isoptera), and grasscutters ( Thryonomys swinderianus) were perceived as the most common damaging pests. Farmers’ descriptions showed that disease pathogens attacked foliar tissues, stem and root tissues and caused leaf dropping and die back. Cassava mosaic disease and root rot were the most common diseases; however, disease descriptions suggested the incidence of viral, bacterial and fungal diseases. Some of the farmers observed mixed symptoms on their farms. The results also showed that only 25.5% cultivated improved varieties. Management actions applied included field sanitation practices and pesticide application. The effectiveness level of the control actions was rated moderately effective. Conclusions: The analysis showed heterogeneity in personal and farm level characteristics of respondents across the two agro-ecologies, but agro-ecologies were independent of the management practices employed. There is a need to improve farmers’ access to improved disease-free planting materials through efficient dissemination pathways and increase farmers’ knowledge on cassava pests, diseases and integrated management through publfic awareness creation and capacity building by extension agents and research institutions. Continued government investment is needed to achieve sustainable outcomes. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8012878 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | F1000 Research Limited |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-80128782021-04-08 Farmers’ knowledge, attitudes and practices towards management of cassava pests and diseases in forest transition and Guinea savannah agro-ecological zones of Ghana Nsiah Frimpong, Benedicta Oppong, Allen Prempeh, Ruth Appiah-Kubi, Zipporah Abrokwah, Linda A. B. Mochiah, Moses N. Lamptey, Joseph Manu-Aduening, Joseph Pita, Justin Gates Open Res Research Article Background: Cassava is a major staple root crop in Ghana, which serves as a food security and an income generating crop for farming families. In spite of its importance, the crop is plagued with biotic factors such as pests and diseases, resulting in yield and income reductions. Methods: Farmers’ knowledge, attitudes and practices towards cassava pest and disease management were investigated. A mixed research questionnaire was used to collect both qualitative and quantitative data from 94 cassava farm households across two major cassava growing agro-ecologies. Results: Using descriptive statistics, parametric and non-parametric analysis, our study revealed that farmers’ knowledge on cassava pests was high but low for diseases. Whiteflies ( Bemisia tabaci Gennadius), grasshoppers ( Zonocerus variegatus), aphids ( Aphis gossypii Glover), mealybugs ( Phenacoccus manihoti), termites ( Isoptera), and grasscutters ( Thryonomys swinderianus) were perceived as the most common damaging pests. Farmers’ descriptions showed that disease pathogens attacked foliar tissues, stem and root tissues and caused leaf dropping and die back. Cassava mosaic disease and root rot were the most common diseases; however, disease descriptions suggested the incidence of viral, bacterial and fungal diseases. Some of the farmers observed mixed symptoms on their farms. The results also showed that only 25.5% cultivated improved varieties. Management actions applied included field sanitation practices and pesticide application. The effectiveness level of the control actions was rated moderately effective. Conclusions: The analysis showed heterogeneity in personal and farm level characteristics of respondents across the two agro-ecologies, but agro-ecologies were independent of the management practices employed. There is a need to improve farmers’ access to improved disease-free planting materials through efficient dissemination pathways and increase farmers’ knowledge on cassava pests, diseases and integrated management through publfic awareness creation and capacity building by extension agents and research institutions. Continued government investment is needed to achieve sustainable outcomes. F1000 Research Limited 2021-02-18 /pmc/articles/PMC8012878/ /pubmed/33842843 http://dx.doi.org/10.12688/gatesopenres.13114.2 Text en Copyright: © 2021 Nsiah Frimpong B et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Nsiah Frimpong, Benedicta Oppong, Allen Prempeh, Ruth Appiah-Kubi, Zipporah Abrokwah, Linda A. B. Mochiah, Moses N. Lamptey, Joseph Manu-Aduening, Joseph Pita, Justin Farmers’ knowledge, attitudes and practices towards management of cassava pests and diseases in forest transition and Guinea savannah agro-ecological zones of Ghana |
title | Farmers’ knowledge, attitudes and practices towards management of cassava pests and diseases in forest transition and Guinea savannah agro-ecological zones of Ghana |
title_full | Farmers’ knowledge, attitudes and practices towards management of cassava pests and diseases in forest transition and Guinea savannah agro-ecological zones of Ghana |
title_fullStr | Farmers’ knowledge, attitudes and practices towards management of cassava pests and diseases in forest transition and Guinea savannah agro-ecological zones of Ghana |
title_full_unstemmed | Farmers’ knowledge, attitudes and practices towards management of cassava pests and diseases in forest transition and Guinea savannah agro-ecological zones of Ghana |
title_short | Farmers’ knowledge, attitudes and practices towards management of cassava pests and diseases in forest transition and Guinea savannah agro-ecological zones of Ghana |
title_sort | farmers’ knowledge, attitudes and practices towards management of cassava pests and diseases in forest transition and guinea savannah agro-ecological zones of ghana |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8012878/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33842843 http://dx.doi.org/10.12688/gatesopenres.13114.2 |
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