Management of Banana Xanthomonas Wilt: Evidence from Impact of Adoption of Cultural Control Practices in Uganda

Abstract

Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW) is an important emerging and non-curable infectious plant pathogen in sub-Saharan Africa that can cause up to 100% yield loss, negatively impacting sustainable access to food and income to more than 100 million banana farmers. This study disentangles adopters into partial and full adopters to investigate the factors that are relevant to sustain the adoption process of BXW control practices and quantifies the impact of adopting the practices. Data from a randomly selected sample of 1200 banana farmers in Uganda where the disease is endemic was used. A multinomial logit model was used to determine the factors affecting adoption of control practices and augmented inverse probability weighting was employed to estimate the impacts of adoption on banana productivity and sales. Results show that training a woman farmer and having diverse sources of information about BXW control practices increased adoption of the control practices and reduced the disease incidences. Farmers who adopted all the recommended control practices achieved significantly the highest values of banana production and sales. We conclude that improving information access through farmers’ preferred communication channels, having women-inclusive trainings, and a combination of cultural practices are effective ways for sustaining adoption of the control practices.

Banana pest risk assessment along banana trade axes running from low to high altitude sites, in the Eastern DR Congo and in Burundi

“…Access to knowledge extension services was generally low across all study sites. Access to information on management and epidemiology of diseases is crucial for containment (Ocimati et al, 2019;Kikulwe et al, 2019), thus needs to be fostered.…”

Comparing effectiveness, cost- and time-efficiency of control options for Xanthomonas wilt of banana under Rwandan agro-ecological conditions

“…SDSR has been shown to reduce the incidence of XW to less than 2% within 3 months, irrespective of the initial incidence in pilot experiments in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (Blomme et al 2019;Blomme et al 2017b). In Uganda, a cost-benefit analysis to assess the adoption of the various elements of the SDSR package showed that the adoption of the full package resulted in financial benefits for farmers, with increases of approximately US$ 462/ha/year (Kikulwe et al 2019).…”

Public and private investments for banana Xanthomonas Wilt control in Uganda: The economic feasibility for smallholder farmers

“…Households that perceive practices to be cost effective are more likely to adopt them which, in turn, enhance household food production resulting in increased food security (Kikulwe et al 2018). Additionally, training received is an important factor boosting the adoption of the practices, especially in the case of women (Kikulwe et al 2019).…”

“…argue that no single management option in isolation can effectively contain the spread of the disease, and only the adoption of the whole package of practices is effective. Kikulwe et al (2019) report on the impact of adoption level of BXW control practices on the value of banana production, which is a step towards better understanding the economic benefits of BXW management. The authors show a positive and significant impact on banana farmers' productivity and sales resulting from adoption of BXW control practices.…”