Last August, the international community came together in Tanzania to establish a framework for combating the worst enemies of African banana in years—banana Xanthomonas wilt and banana bunchy top disease.

Fourteen years after it was first introduced, the biopesticide Green Muscle®, which uses the fungus Metarhizium anisopliae to kill pests, is still effectively targeting invasive locusts that threaten African farmlands.

A partnership of scientists lead by IITA, CIRAD, and Africa Rice are studying how weaver ants, the most ancient biocontrol agent on record, can protect economically important crops, such as mango, from the invasive fruit fly.

The “father of biocontrol”, Peter Neuenschwander, joined IITA’s biocontrol project against the cassava mealybug in 1983, and retired in 2003. In this interview, he bares his mind on the contribution of biocontrol and strategies on how Africa can check invasive pests.

The president of one of the strongest crop networks in Nigeria, Pastor O.A. Adenola, talks about the need for stakeholders to join forces against aflatoxin spread and other issues.

IITA Virologist James Legg explains the progress of research on understanding the deadly relationship between the whitefly vectors and the viruses that are causing the destructive cassava mosaic and cassava brown streak diseases.