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Coffee farmers told to try new technologies
Mzuzu-based Lunyangwa Research Station has urged coffee farmers in the country to use new technologies of controlling the deadly coffee pest-stem borer-which can attack 40 percent of a field and kill 20 percent within a season.
Coffee's national production has dwindled drastically from around 10,000 metric tonnes in 1986 to 1,500 metric tonnes in 2004 not only due to price fluctuations on the international market but also mainly due to diseases, especially the stem borer, according to Lunyangwa Research Station official Francis Gondwe.
Gondwe-who is also the station's coffee economist for the Common Fund for Commodities-Coffee stem borer project-said Lunyangwa has developed several technologies which it is currently disseminating to farmers through farmer field schools.
The technologies have replaced the use of chemicals dieldrin and aldrin which were found to be dangerous to humans and animals.
"Now we are urging farmers to use the chemical fliponil which has already been approved to fight the stem borer. We are also trying to evaluate methods such as painting the trees as well as smoothing the stem," he said.
Gondwe, speaking at Khosolo in Mzimba on Tuesday during the ongoing coffee management field days, also encouraged the farmers to grow more coffee arguing that the crop is now fetching good prices at the market.
Smallholder Coffee Farmers Trust Extension Supervisor Mahara Nyirenda agreed with Gondwe that the country's coffee is on high demand internationally and is fetching good prices.
"What the farmers need to do is to plant more coffee trees and use modern technologies in combating the stem borer pest which is a major threat to coffee. A farmer should plant at least 3,000 coffee trees if they are to benefit," he said.
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