The single biggest hidden cost in African smallholder pest management is not the price of chemicals. It is the cost of buying chemicals that contain little or no active ingredient…
It starts small. You walk through your maize field one morning and notice a few leaves with ragged holes. You think nothing of it. Three days later, half your stand…
If you grow tomatoes in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, or South Africa, you have probably asked yourself this question at some point: is it possible to control tomato pests without spending…
There is a pesticide that was banned in Nigeria years ago that you can still buy at certain agro-chemical markets today. It sits on the shelf without a NAFDAC number,…
How many times have you picked up a pesticide bottle, looked at the label, and felt more confused after reading it than before? You are not alone. Walk into any…
Nobody talks about flies when they talk about pig farming. They talk about feed conversion, breed selection, disease management, and market prices. Flies get mentioned as an afterthought, if at…
Most farmers who say neem oil does not work are right about their experience and wrong about the reason. They applied it once. They saw no immediate knockdown. They compared…
Here is something most African farmers know but rarely say out loud. The hardest part of farming is not planting season. It is not the weeding, the pest control, or…
The most effective pest control programme is the one you can actually afford to maintain consistently throughout the growing season. For many smallholder farmers across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and South…
A farmer in Anambra State planted two hectares of cassava in April. By July the stems looked stunted, the leaves were curling inward, and a white powdery coating had appeared…