Stephen Mujuni, one of the affected farmers
A strange pest has attacked mango plantations in Ntungamo. Some experts have identified the pest as Mealybug, the wingless insect that often appears as white cottony masses on leaves, stems and fruit of plants.
Agricultural experts in the district say that the disease troubling the farmers mainly along the Uganda-Rwanda Border is thought to have started in Rwanda before spreading and devastating acres of mango plantations across Ntungamo.
So far, all measures applied by the farmers, including spraying to kill this pest, have not registered any visible results and mangoes continue to rot from the gardens.
Badru Sebatanzi, one of the farmers says that the pest has attacked two parishes of Mirama and Kyarwehunde in Ruhaama Sub County.
Stephen Mujuni , another farmer says that the pest also stops the tree from flowering while some fruits rot before maturity and eventually fall off.
Annet Twinomugisha, a Mango farmer in Ihirikiro says they no longer get harvests as was in the past noting that the pest attacks the plant from the flowers to the seed. She says she used to earn between One to two million Shillings from her plantation but never earned anything from the previous season.
Esther Atwine, the Ntungamo District Agriculture Officer says farmers have lost over 50 million Shillings from the over 20 acres of Mango plantations in the two Parishes this season alone. She says now that the insect is deployed they will follow up to monitor for results.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, this mango mealybug pest was first sited in India and eventually in 1980 it migrated to West African countries before ravaging East Africa Rwanda and now Uganda.
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