Regional Workshop of the International Plant Protection Convention

The Honourable Dean Jonas, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Barbuda Affairs of Antigua and Barbuda attended the Opening Ceremony and delivered the welcome remarks.

During the workshop the participants from Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago will benefit from an important technical seminar focused primarily on the destructive fungal disease - Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense Tropical Race 4 (TR4), which causes significant losses to banana production in several Asian and African countries and was very recently detected in some banana farms in Colombia, South America.

The seminar will be conducted by Dr Luis F. Pérez-Vicente, Senior Plant Pathologist in the Department of Plant Pathology in Cuba, while an update on the status of the fungal disease will be provided by Dr Vyju Lopez, Plant Production and Protection Officer at FAO.  The seminar will also provide an opportunity for Caribbean plant health professionals to develop critical plans to address the risk of this devastating disease which can threaten the agricultural sector of many countries in the region and affect the livelihood of farmers.

While the fungal disease poses specific threats to banana and plantain crops, it can also attack species such as heliconias which is often grown for local and international markets. Although the fungus spreads mainly through infected planting material and contaminated soil and water, careful attention must be paid by farmers as shoes/boots, farm tools / equipment (tractors) and water run-off from a contaminated field can contribute to its rapid spread. 

Dr Vyju Lopez stressed, “The fungal disease can multiple rapidly in the plants which may eventually kill them, and since it produces such large number of spores the fungal disease can remain quite active in the soil for up to 30 years which is devastating news for any impacted farmer”.

Meanwhile, Juliet Goldsmith, Plant Health Specialist at the Caribbean Agricultural Health and Food Safety Agency (CAHFSA) headquartered in Suriname, welcomed the attention that is being given to the TR4 on bananas as this disease can have an impact on food and nutrition security goals and the economies of the region.  She stated, “These annual regional workshops are very important for the Caribbean as they allow IPPC contracting parties in the region to fully participate in the standard setting process”.

The IPPC workshop is jointly organized by CAHFSA, the Regional Plant Protection Organization (RPPO) for the Caribbean; the IPPC Secretariat, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Sub-regional Office for the Caribbean, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Barbuda Affairs of Antigua and Barbuda.

The workshop in Antigua is one of seven annual IPPC regional workshops hosted globally in 2019 with similar capacity building workshops held over the past few years in Trinidad and Tobago in 2018 and in Barbados in 2016 and 2017. With the upcoming International Year of Plant Health (IYPH) to be held in Rome, Italy in 2020 which will seek to raise global awareness on how protecting plant health can help end hunger, reduce poverty, protect the environment, and boost economic development, this workshop provides a prime opportunity for the attendees to discuss their regional plans.