Plant clinics take root in Uganda
MUKONO: Using a sharp kitchen knife, "plant doctor" Daniel Lyazi sets to work dissecting a slime-covered cabbage at a farmers' market in Mukono, central Uganda, where the devastating cassava brown streak disease was first identified in 2004.
A plant health clinic in Machakos, Kenya © CABI
"There's a small caterpillar which is eating the cabbage and according to me it's a diamond-back moth," he tells the group of farmers who crowd around his table.
He advises the cabbage grower to switch to a different pesticide and in the next season inter-plant with onions (as an additional repellent to moths), and fills out a form with this prescription before turning to the next "patient", an under-sized cassava tuber.
"Plant clinics" like this one, free of charge and open to all, were piloted in Mukono from 2006 and in the past year have been scaled out to 45 (out of 112) of Uganda's local government districts, according to the UK-based Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience (CABI).
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