Pests and integrated pest management in western Equatoria, southern Sudan

Abstract

Southern Sudan has tremendous agricultural potential, particularly in the high rainfall green belt of western Equatoria that borders the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A wide range of tropical and semi-tropical crops is grown there in a variety of complex cropping systems. Although a long civil war severely disrupted agriculture in the region, there is now hope that the recent peace accord will return stability and agriculture will remain a mainstay of a revived economy in western Equatoria. The environment supports crop production, but pests and diseases also thrive, although very little has been recorded about them. This article represents the sole record of an agricultural insect pest collection and disease notes assembled at Yei over several years in the early 1980s, but which were destroyed during the civil war. It is hoped that these notes will be useful in addressing biotic constraints to rehabilitation of agriculture in western Equatoria. Traditional methods of pest and disease management will be particularly important given the poor state of the economy, the need to produce crops for subsistence farming and the relative geographical isolation and poor communications that characterize southern Sudan.