Focuses on plant health issues in sub-Saharan Africa which are key to improving yieldsReviews ways of improving the health of key African crops such as cassava, maize and grain legumesBrings together leading experts on plant health in sub-Saharan Africa

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is an effective and environmentally sensitive approach to pest management. It uses natural predators, pest-resistant plants, and other methods to preserve a healthy environment in an effort to decrease reliance on harmful pesticides. Featuring forty chapters written by leading experts, this textbook covers a broad and comprehensive range of topics in integrated pest management, focused primarily on theory and concepts. It is complemented by two award winnin...

Climate change represents an unprecedented challenge to the world's biosphere and to the global community. It also represents a unique challenge for plant health. Human activities and increased market globalization, coupled with rising temperatures, has led to a situation that is favourable to pest movement and establishment. This scientific review assesses the potential effects of climate change on plant pests and consequently on plant health. The evidence assessed strongly indicates that...

This guide is the first on the practical application of FAO's Save and Grow model of agriculture to specific smallholder crops and farming systems. It comes as cassava production intensies worldwide, and growers shift from traditional cultivation practices to monocropping, higher-yielding genotypes, and greater use of agrochemicals. Intensication carries great risks, including soil nutrient depletion and upsurges in pests and diseases.The guide shows how ecosystem-based Save and Grow appro...

The sterile insect technique (SIT) is an environment-friendly method of pest control that integrates well into area-wide integrated pest management (AW-IPM) programmes. This book takes a generic, thematic, comprehensive, and global approach in describing the principles and practice of the SIT. The strengths and weaknesses, and successes and failures, of the SIT are evaluated openly and fairly from a scientific perspective. The SIT is applicable to some major pests of plant-, animal-, and h...

The State of the World's Forest Genetic Resources addresses the conservation, management and sustainable use of forest tree and other woody plant genetic resources of actual and potential value for human well-being in the broad range of management systems. This report complements two other FAO flagship publications in the field of forestry, the annual State of the World's Forests and the periodic Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA). State of the World's Forests reports on the status o...

This study, prepared within the ambit of The State of the World's Forest Genetic Resources, reviews what is known about the value of trees for tropical rural communities. It focuses on non-timber products harvested from trees in natural and managed forests and woodlands, the various products and services obtained from trees planted or retained in agroforestry systems, and the commercial products of tree commodity crops. The role of intra-specific genetic variation in determining the value ...

Integrated Pest Management: Current Concepts and Ecological Perspective presents an overview of alternative measures to traditional pest management practices using biological control and biotechnology. The removal of some highly effective broad-spectrum chemicals, caused by concerns over environmental health and public safety, has resulted in the development of alternative, reduced risk crop protection products. These products, less toxic to the environment and easily integrated into biolo...

Over 98% of sprayed insecticides and 95% of herbicides reach a destination other than their target species, including non-target species, air, water and soil. The extensive reliance on insecticide use reduces biodiversity, contributes to pollinator decline, destroys habitat, and threatens endangered species. This book offers a more effective application of the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approach, on an area-wide (AW) or population-wide (AW-IPM) basis, which aims at the management of ...

Biological Control: Global Impacts, Challenges and Future Directions of Pest Management provides a historical summary of organisms and main strategies used in biological control, as well as the key challenges confronting biological control in the 21st century.Biological control has been implemented for millennia, initially practised by growers moving beneficial species from one local area to another. Today, biological control has evolved into a formal science that provides...

Since the 1960s, the world's population has more than doubled and agricultural production per person has increased by a third. Yet this growth in production has masked enormous hidden costs arising from widespread pesticide use - massive ecological damage and high incidences of farmer poisoning and chronic health effects.Whereas once the risks involved with pesticide use were judged to be outweighed by the potential benefits, increasingly the external costs of pesticides, to enviro...

Major tree crops contribute substantially to the economy of many developing countries on the Asian, African and Latin American continents. For example, coffee is the main revenue earner for Kenya. This book provides a comprehensive review of the agronomy, botany, taxonomy, genetics, chemistry, economics, and future global prospects of a range of crops that have great food, industrial and economic value such as cocoa, coffee, cashew, oil palm and natural rubber. - Discusses the major tree c...