Abstract
The consumption of cassava crop per capita calories in many Africa countries ranked it as the second most important staple food crop. Despite its diverse utilities, the yield potential of cassava is greatly hampered by viral diseases and these differ from country to country, depending on the type of viruses present. Unfortunately, the recent sudden re-emergence of cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) in East and Central Africa is currently gaining more aggressive international attention in Africa and other concerned countries, due to the significant economic yield losses imparting to most poor resource farmers fields. However, selfless efforts from scientific researches to manage CBSD, including recommendations, still seems not to be complimented as expected with pro-active measures from relevant stakeholders, nevertheless the concerned farmers. Overall, the present review revisited a brief glance of the historical development of CBSD, progresses made so far with respect to management strategies. Even more, the paper suggests opinions which could be explore by the ones interested to help within research findings, as well as to bring the awareness and to prevent further spread in countries and/or regions where there is currently the outbreak of CBSD and which had not been yet affected.
Highlights
Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz), the crop which seems to be the “food for the poor masses” has become a multipurpose crop that responds to the priorities of many developing countries, to trends in the global economy and to the challenge of climate change (Jarvis et al, 2012; FAO, 2013)
It should be of note that as long as cassava cultivation continued to be on an increase in Africa, there is high tendency of transferring cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) from location to locations due to stem cuttings exchange by the growers who had no knowledge of the implication the disease might cause
On the part of the scientists, focus has been to carry out researches that will mitigate the underlying diseases such as CBSD and the transfer of results and knowledge gained in scientific communities, and most especially, making recommendations to the policy makers for actions to be taken upon
Summary
Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz), the crop which seems to be the “food for the poor masses” has become a multipurpose crop that responds to the priorities of many developing countries, to trends in the global economy and to the challenge of climate change (Jarvis et al, 2012; FAO, 2013). It is important as a matter of urgency, to unanimously intensify a good collaboration between all relevant persons involved, so as to help the larger poor resource cassava growers to mitigate this disease causing low output of the crop.
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