Grower adoption of an integrated pest management package for management of mango-infesting fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) in Embu, Kenya

Abstract

Mango (Mangifera indicaL.) is a well-recognized fruit of economic and nutritional importance to smallholder farmers across Africa. Production and marketing of this fruit is, however, severely hampered by fruit fly infestation that is responsible for enormous fruit losses. In Kenya, control of this pest is primarily dependent on the use of chemical pesticides, a strategy that has been shown to be ineffective. Although the recently introduced fruit fly integrated pest management (IPM) package developed by the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe) has proved to be effective against this pest, there is little demonstrable investigation on its adoption to assess the factors likely to influence its acceptance among producers. A household survey was conducted among 805 randomly sampled mango farmers, and a negative binomial regression model was applied to the data in order to identify the factors influencing the intensity of the adoption of the fruit fly IPM package. Results revealed that 58.5% of the sampled mango farmers adopted at least one component of the fruit fly IPM package. Empirical results indicated that education of the household head, number of mature mango trees planted, keeping records of mango enterprise, use of protective clothing during spraying and participation in the IPM training at demonstration sites have a positive influence on the intensity of the adoption of the fruit fly IPM package in Embu, situated in eastern Kenya.

Knowledge gaps among smallholder farmers hinder adoption of conservation biological control

“…Pest management was very much oriented to chemical pesticide use by the calendar rather than using damage assessment and IPM principles, and without any knowledge on the environmental side effects of the chemicals. Synthetic pesticides are registered products, so farmers do not see a reason why they should not be used because they did not consider the impacts of the misuse of synthetic pesticides to the environment (Korir et al, 2015). As a result of various challenges experienced from the use of synthetic pesticides, they declared the need for education on alternative ways to manage the pests as well as safe use of various agricultural inputs.…”

Do Farmers and the Environment Benefit from Adopting Integrated Pest Management Practices? Evidence from Kenya

“…The choice of these variables was based on existing agricultural technology adoption and impact studies (e.g. Isoto et al ., ; Kassie et al ., , ; Korir et al ., ; Sanglestsawai et al ., ; Sharma et al ., ; Sharma and Peshin, ; Gautam et al ., ).…”

Potentials and challenges of natural pest control for sustainable legume production in Africa

“…The use of chemical pesticides in pest management has been considered as cheap due to the fact that the indirect costs associated with the use of the pesticides such as environmental pollution, death of non-target organisms, health problems and interference with ecosystem services are not taken into account (Pimentel, 2005). Farmers lack both biological and ecological knowledge towards pest control and thus they only believe in the use of pesticides and since they are registered products, they don't see the reason of why not to use them (Korir et al, 2015;Schreinemachers et al, 2014;Van Lenteren, 2012). Therefore, effective implementation of natural pest control requires a drastic change in the mindset of farmers who are already addicted with pesticide use and unaware of other associated side effects.…”