The coconut palm is one of the most adaptable plants. Man
can benefit from every component of the coconut palm, including the roots, fronds,
and other products with added value [Ohler, 1999]. For millions of tiny
holders, the coconut palm provides food and drink, traditional medicine,
containers, rope-making materials, frond roofs, and even fuel for cooking.
(Fig. 1) [Ohler, 1999]. The average lifespan of an economy is 50 years, yet a
coconut palm can last up to 200 years! [Bourdeix and others, 2005]
The coconut palm is a significant source of fats, oils, and
numerous industrial products, making it commercially significant on a global scale.
In terms of production volume and international trade, the coconut palm was the
world's most important source of vegetable oil as early as 1914. 3.5% of
Ghana's population, or 30.8 million people in 2021, is thought to depend on the
coconut industry for their living.
The coconut palm is
grown as a food crop and a cash crop. Disadvantaged groups like the poor
without access to land, street children, and rural women are given employment
opportunities through its production, processing, and commercialization.
However, the deadly Cape Saint Paul Wilt (CSPW), a phytoplasmal disease that
causes yellowing of the skin, has wiped off hundreds of hectares of coconut
plantations in Ghana's three main coconut-producing regions, the Western,
Central, and Volta Regions. If timely containment measures are not taken, the
disease might result in 100% crop losses.
If no control measures are taken, a one-hectare coconut
plantation (160 coconut palms) will often go extinct within two years after the
onset of the first disease symptoms. The Ghanaian coconut industry
rehabilitation programmes are in danger due to the illness's potential to
devastate coconut populations in active disease foci. To strengthen the
argument for the early control of the disease in Ghana, it is crucial to
estimate agricultural losses due to CSPW epidemics, quantify the losses in
monetary terms, and determine the economic impact of crop losses. To increase
crop yields in agriculture, crop diseases and pest control are of utmost
importance.
Typically, this is done by eradicating the pathogen/pest or
lessening its effects on the target crops by physical, chemical, biological,
and cultural methods. A high-value crop like cocomut needs a disease control
strategy that is effective, environmentally friendly (less danger to the target
crop, the farmer, and the environment before and after production), simple to
implement, and most importantly, economical. The integrated management of
disease is the current strategy for agricultural disease control. The economic
damage threshold (action threshold) and economic injury levels of a crop
disease at which control actions should be undertaken are crucial to integrated
disease management (IDM). The economic benefit-to-cost ratio serves as the
foundation for the economic damage threshold.
That is, for control efforts to be justified, the expected
loss from a crop disease must be higher than the expense of containment
measures. In Ghana, the economic damage threshold method of CSPW control has
mainly proven unreliable. Because CSPW is a vascular wilt and symptoms signify
an advanced or terminal infestation, unlike insect pest infestations, where
pest population or damage level can be monitored and treated when the economic
damage threshold is reached. Therefore, by the time a control treatment is
started solely based on the onset of disease symptoms, irreparable economic
harm has already been done. Ghana's coconut production has suffered
significantly as a result of the Cape Saint Paul Wilt epidemic.
Hybrid coconuts are less vulnerable to the CSPW epidemic
than pure lines, as evidenced by the fact that the economic impact of CSPW on
coconut output is lower in hybrid coconuts. This confirms that the Cape Saint
Paul Wilt of the coconut is a disease of the economy that needs to be
controlled, if not entirely eradicated, through deliberate interventionist
strategies like zealous scientific research, especially breeding research, to
preserve the profitability of coconut cultivation and its competitive position
on the vegetable oils market. This book is a two-fold compendium of the
findings from Cape Saint Paul Wilt's over eighty years of coconut research in
Ghana.
The first section outlines the most significant past
scientific research interventions and accomplishments since the start of the
CSPW epidemic in 1932; it then fairly assesses the current research being done
to control the CSPW threat; and finally, it makes a well-informed prediction
about the future of CSPW research on coconuts in Ghana. The second section
employs strong econometric models and statistical analysis tools to objectively
show the financial impact of the CSPW outbreak on coconut farming and yield in
Ghana. By raising global knowledge of the coconut palm's economic significance,
eradicating farmer apathy brought on by the CSPW pandemic, and encouraging more
international funding for coconut research, I intend to rekindle scientists'
enthusiasm in the study of coconuts.A complete integrated management of the
Cape Saint Paul Wilt of coconut pandemic in Ghana and elsewhere is what I also
anticipate will result from the findings in this significant book.
Author(s) Details:
Gilbert Danyo,
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research - Oil Palm Research
Institute, Coconut Research Programme, P.O.Box 245, Sekondi, Ghana.
Please see the link here: https://stm.bookpi.org/EECMCSPWCG/issue/view/770
