{"id":9012,"date":"2016-06-14T08:53:32","date_gmt":"2016-06-14T08:53:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revoscience.com\/en\/?p=9012"},"modified":"2016-06-14T08:53:32","modified_gmt":"2016-06-14T08:53:32","slug":"mauritius-to-become-an-african-training-hub-against-fruit-pests-with-the-support-of-iaea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/mauritius-to-become-an-african-training-hub-against-fruit-pests-with-the-support-of-iaea\/","title":{"rendered":"Mauritius to become an African training hub against fruit pests with the support of IAEA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IAEA-logo\"<\/a>A new irradiator inaugurated in Mauritius will help the island nation step up its fight against fruit flies threatening valuable crops and also support other African nations in controlling insect pests causing major economic losses to farmers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Partly funded by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the EUR 238,000 machine will enable Mauritius to more than double its capacity to use the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) – a kind of birth control for such pests – to suppress fruit flies.<\/span><\/p>\n

In another IAEA-backed measure to strengthen similar efforts across Africa, Mauritius today also launched its first academic training programme in SIT, to be held annually.\u00a0 This four-month post-graduate certificate course goes beyond its borders. The first intake will include students from Botswana, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania and Zambia.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe new irradiator and facility will benefit not only Mauritius but also other African Member States, and the country will act as a training centre for SIT in the region,\u201d Shaukat Abdulrazak, Director of the Africa Division of the IAEA\u2019s Technical Cooperation Department, told the inauguration event in Reduit, Mauritius.<\/span><\/p>\n

SIT is a proven cost-effective and environmentally- friendly technique used in countries across the world to suppress insect pests, such as fruit flies. The technique helps to guarantee the quality of fruits and vegetables and reduces pesticide use. Insects are mass-reared in special facilities, irradiated and released in the field at weekly intervals, with the ultimate goal of significantly reducing their population.<\/span><\/p>\n

[pullquote]The IAEA procured and organized the shipment and installation of the new irradiator, which will now help Mauritius produce and release up to 1 million sterile flies per week, up from 400,000.[\/pullquote]<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are eight species of fruit flies in Mauritius, four of them attacking vegetables and four species attacking fleshy fruits,\u201d said Mahen Kumar Seeruttun, Minister of Agro-Industry and Food Security of Mauritius. He estimates that 160 million Mauritian Rupees \u2013\u00a0 over EUR 4 million \u2013 are lost annually as a result of the damage caused by fruit flies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Through its technical cooperation programme and its Joint United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization\/IAEA Division, the IAEA has for decades been supporting the application of SIT to manage insect pests around the world. Support is delivered through training, equipment and research.<\/span><\/p>\n

The IAEA procured and organized the shipment and installation of the new irradiator, which will now help Mauritius produce and release up to 1 million sterile flies per week, up from 400,000. \u201cThe economic consequences of fruit flies are so great that countries free of such infestations prohibit the import of produce from countries where the pests are present,\u201d Abdulrazak said. \u201cThis is particularly hard-hitting to the economies of most African countries, which rely heavily on agriculture exports.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

With the new irradiator, Mauritius plans to mainly combat melon flies (Bactrocera cucurbitae) and peach flies (B. zonata). These insects lay eggs under the skin of the fruit or vegetable, which develop into larvae that destroy the crops. Melon flies attack cucurbits, which are plants of the gourd family \u2013 such as melon, pumpkin, squash, and cucumber \u2013 that account for about 30 percent of cultivated areas in the Indian Ocean nation. \u201cThe experience gained and technical expertise developed by national counterparts through the implementation of past and present IAEA- supported technical cooperation projects are enabling us to achieve the objectives of my ministry,\u201d said Mr. Seeruttun.\u00a0 In the absence of fruit flies, cucurbit production in the country could rise to 32,000 tonnes per year from the current 24,000 tonnes per year, he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

The new SIT infrastructure is the culmination of a four-year IAEA technical assistance effort, and will also support the potential use of this nuclear technique for the control of mosquitos, such as Aedes aegypti, which transmits the Zika virus, chikungunya and dengue fever.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Partly funded by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the EUR 238,000 machine will enable Mauritius to more than double its capacity to use the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) – a kind of birth control for such pests – to suppress fruit flies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture","category-culture"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IAEA-logo.png",300,225,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IAEA-logo-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IAEA-logo.png",300,225,false],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IAEA-logo.png",300,225,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IAEA-logo.png",300,225,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IAEA-logo.png",300,225,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IAEA-logo.png",300,225,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IAEA-logo.png",300,225,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IAEA-logo.png",300,225,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IAEA-logo.png",300,225,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IAEA-logo.png",300,225,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IAEA-logo.png",300,225,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IAEA-logo.png",300,225,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IAEA-logo.png",87,65,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IAEA-logo.png",300,225,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IAEA-logo.png",96,72,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IAEA-logo.png",150,113,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"Agriculture<\/a> Culture<\/a>","tag_info":"Culture","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}