The areas of Salcajá (Quetzaltenango), Champerico (Retalhuleu) and the whole division of Petén have one factor in widespread: they’re all acknowledged as areas freed from the Mediterranean fly. This offers them a secure move to export to high-caliber markets like the US.
However this isn’t sufficient. The Guatemalan agro-export sector emphasizes the necessity to liberate extra areas of the nation to ensure the export of agricultural merchandise to key worldwide markets and forestall fruits from being subjected to quarantine remedies that may undermine the standard of the product, resembling, for instance , the appliance of sizzling water.
José Luis Salazar, farm supervisor at Agrotrópic, explains that the corporate grows a number of kinds of mangoes all year long to broaden the exportable provide (Ataulfo, February and March; Tommy Atkins, March, April and Could; Kent, Could and June ). Nevertheless, the Mediterranean fly and different species considerably have an effect on productiveness.
In keeping with info from the Moscamed Guatemala Program, the Mediterranean fly is among the most damaging pests that exist on the planet, “as a result of its skill to breed and destroy total fruit plantations. They often infest fruits with or with out business worth, however then migrate to large-scale plantations and lay their eggs in mature soft-shelled fruits.
Salazar emphasizes that the important thing pest in mango cultivation is fruit flies and so they have a major impact when they aren’t managed, as a result of it’s thought-regarding a quarantine pest, that’s, it doesn’t take pleasure in free export to the US. “What we’d like is the eradication of the fly to declare the world as a free space, however not solely of the Mediterranean fly, but additionally of different species, primarily these of the genus Anastrepha,” provides Salazar.
Extra fly-free areas
José David Domínguez, head of regional detection and management within the Moscamed program, signifies that the method to generate extra free zones on the nationwide stage, and which might be acknowledged internationally, consists first of declaring a free space internally of the Moscamed program and making it acknowledged following a yr with out reporting the detection of the Mediterranean fly.
Moscamed is the official establishment accountable for the detection, management, suppression and eradication of the Mediterranean fly in its territory and has the mission of detecting the presence of the pest and suppressing it.
“The authorities are making an effort to declare territories which have been managed as fly-free zones. This may enable small and medium-sized producers to combine into worth chains resembling mango, in order that the nation’s high-quality product is accepted in the US,” says Fernando Zuluaga, supervisor of the agricultural sector at Agexport.
Jorge López, director of the Moscamed program, which works hand in hand with the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Meals (MAGA), explains that the Mediterranean fly is among the most vital pests worldwide, as a result of it has the flexibility to adapt to any area, temperature and altitude.
“In the intervening time we’ve Petén, declared by MAGA as a Mediterranean fly-free space and internationally acknowledged by Mexico and the US. The opposite free areas we’ve, solely declared by the ministry, are Champerico and Salcajá,” says López.
“The areas of low prevalence are discovered within the Northern Transversal Strip, which is the buffer zone of the Petén free space; in Huehuetenango, which protects Moscamed-free areas however which haven’t been declared as a result of there may be nonetheless a presence of the plague, and the Champerico space, which additionally consists of San Andrés in Mazatenango. Within the suppression areas, we’ve the Lake Atitlán basin,” provides López.
Subsequent steps
To advertise extra free zones, specialists imagine that multilateral help is required.
“It’s crucial for each producers to grasp the significance of all their agricultural actions to cease the expansion of this pest, in addition to on the inhabitants stage when free areas are already established and never enable fruit that comes from different infested areas to keep away from re-infestation. ” signifies Domínguez.
Past financial sources, Domínguez highlights that funding can be required to lift consciousness among the many inhabitants of the significance of those areas.
“It’s essential to encourage producers to hitch the hassle to provide wholesome fruit, merchandise which have added worth out there when exported,” says Domínguez. There’s a advanced of fruit flies and there are different pests that in some unspecified time in the future current themselves as quarantine limitations for the nation.
The decision from the personal sector is for the Vice Ministry of Agricultural Well being and Rules to institutionalize and supply budgets for packages associated to the management and detection of pests such because the Mediterranean fly.
For Eddy Martínez, director of Agexport, it’s essential to institutionalize packages and tasks, there doesn’t must be a clear slate with every administration; keep educated technical personnel, and that the required sources are assigned in order that the tasks may be executed, and that there’s good communication between the private and non-private sectors in order that the tasks are profitable.
Domínguez provides that free areas must be promoted based mostly on the potential that every one has to provide particular items. For instance, the world that’s devoted to mango manufacturing as a result of its traits. “We should proceed working and defending what we at present have, which is Petén, Retalhuleu and in direction of the border with Mexico, and within the Huehuetenango space,” Domínguez asserts.
The precedence to eradicate the pest will rely on the kind of crop present in every space, as a result of, as López explains, whether it is an intensive crop like espresso, as a result of it’s the first host of the Mediterranean fly, it’s not attainable to eradicate it. of the crop. “That’s the place we ask that every one producers help us to know the way we suppress the pest with the completely different eradication strategies,” says López.
pest management
Among the many major methods for minimizing pests, Moscamed representatives point out all the things from spraying with environmentally pleasant merchandise to the sterile insect approach.
Domínguez signifies that for monitoring they use completely different traps to determine the place this pest is current. “This system refers to utilizing the identical species and elevating it en masse to place it by way of a sterilization course of by way of the usage of atomic power. This enables us to have a lot of sterile flies which might be launched within the areas with the very best focus of fertile flies and thus cut back the expansion price of fly populations within the Mediterranean,” explains Domínguez.
López explains that the primary exercise carried out is detection and it’s divided into two: trapping and sampling. The primary signifies the presence or absence of the grownup stage in a given space and the second determines the immature levels (larvae) in a given space.
“When there may be trapping, there are steady crops within the espresso space, so we use aerial spraying and as soon as the pest is focused, we proceed to a floor spray that consists of brigades of individuals spraying,” provides López.
He concludes that the product used is known as GF-120 Naturalyte and is licensed to be used in natural agriculture. The energetic ingredient is 0.02% and stimulates the pest to feed and when it feeds on a drop of the product, it suffers from paralysis.
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