Analysis of pest and disease management needed

There is a deficiency in the generation and analysis of data on pest and disease management in TT, director of the Extension, Information and Services (ETIS) Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries Deokee Bholasingh-Hay said.

“For instance, (people) may be able to look at the health-risk database of a particular plant crop and make an informed decision and determination on the most appropriate geographic location for both the cultivation and marketing of produce, soil treatment considerations, effective chemical or biological control and the practical as well as economic feasibility of production.”

Noting the ministry has been involved in conducting plant clinics in Trinidad since 2012, Bholasingh-Hay lamented that optimum use had not been made of data generated from these exercises.

In a statement, the ministry said Bholasingh-Hay pointed out that the data was simply uploaded to CABI’s Plantwise Online Management System (POMS) and updated without the requisite analysis and data sharing so as to guide the quality of diagnoses (advice) and contribute to overall plant health.

Bholasingh-Hay shared her concern during a recent training course in data quality assessment and management for plant clinics. Hosted by ETIS in collaboration with the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (CABI), the December 4-7 training course was held at the National Agricultural Marketing Development Corporation (NAMDEVCO) Packing House Facility in Piarco.

The ministry said the training course was aimed at “effectively demonstrating the tremendous potential” of POMS and in particular, how data analysis can be utilised to inform decision-making and programme-planning processes. Participants engaged in a thorough revision of previous, locally-conducted plant clinics in which certain gaps were identified and necessary interventions and validations made.

CABI’s Plantwise co-ordinator for the Caribbean, crop management specialist, José María Gómez, who facilitated the four-day training, explained that the thinking behind the exercise – and Plantwise as well – was that it would work to help farmers lose less of what they grow to plant health problems.

“The training was dynamic in that participants were placed in various stakeholder groups – exporter; farmer and agro-supplier – in which they were required to analyse plant health data from a range of perspectives. This was done so that they can appreciate just how efficiently, the same type of information can be manipulated by different persons to inform their own unique and individual function in the plant health management process,” Gómez said.