Why is it in news?

World Vegetable Centre takes up tomato pest research centre in Madanapalle (AP)

Details

• The World Vegetable Center (WVC), a Taiwan-based horticulture research forum, has embarked on the ambitious mission of putting an end to the menacing pest ‘tuta absoluta’ which is found to be affecting the large expanses of tomato farms in Madanapalle region, considered the largest tomato-growing belt in India.
• The WVC scientists from its Hyderabad chapter have launched research into the pest, obtaining successful results in recent weeks. A Germany-based trade organisation is also involved in extending the logistics to the research.
• The pest is also common in South and Central Asian countries, affecting the tomato crops.
• The worst dimension of this ‘tuta absoluta’ pest is that it would affect the crop when it is about to be harvested, thus bringing huge damage in the fields and causing unbearable losses to farmers.
• Currently, the research was grounded in four experiment farmlands in Ramasamudram, Palamaner, Nimmanapalle and Madanapalle mandals.
• The WVC scientists have developed a gel-like substance, which would be placed in the fields. The substance which smells like a female tuta would attract the male tutas in large numbers. Entangled in the gummy chemical, the male tutus will again find themselves stormed by other male tutus. In a record time of a few weeks, the chemical can kill the tutus spread over 12 generations. It’s like doing family planning operation among male tutus by killing them, and leaving the females to go barren, and thus arresting the progeny.
• Already, the tomato growers in large numbers have shown much interest in the experiment, expecting the laboratory success to reach their fields. Tomato enjoys the envious status of having dual purposes for the processing units and domestic consumers as well.

About the World Vegetable Center

• The World Vegetable Center, previously known as the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center, is an international, nonprofit institute for vegetable research and development. It was "founded in 1971 in Shanhua, southern Taiwan, by the Asian Development Bank, Taiwan, Republic of Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.
• These countries wished for the Center to become the "facilitator" for the Collaborative Vegetable Research Network for Southeast Asia, which was to work toward completing various projects that the founding nations put forth. Overall, the main goal of this continues to be to "reduce malnutrition and alleviate poverty in developing nations through improving production and consumption of vegetables

Conclusion and way forward

• Pests are one of the biggest adversaries of agricultural produce all over the world, especially in India. Pest attack causes millions of Rupees of avoidable damage to crops, especially horticultural crops, which are more vulnerable
• The conventional method to counter pest attacks have been the use of pesticides, which has turned out to be harmful for the environment and many pesticides are known bioaccumulants which also find their way into human bodies, causing poisoning.
• Hence it is imperative to find out better and effective alternatives to conventional pesticides and efforts of dedicated institutions like the World Vegetable forum can go a long way in realizing that goal.
• The development of a gel-like substance to eliminate ‘tuta absoluta’ is a step in the right direction and further research in developing products to protect other crops must be undertaken at the earliest.

Source

The Hindu