Pest Losses and Control of Damage on Sorghum in Developing Countries - The Realities and the Myths

There have been significant advances in sorghumresearch and considerable increases in worldsorghum grain production and yield in the pastdecade. However, the sobering fact 1s that, withthe notable exception of India, there has beenonly a minimal improvement in overall productionfrom the countries where sorghum is usedprimarily in human food (Kanwar and Ryan 1976)and indications are that production trends will benegative before long in many countries (Ryan,rsonal communication). This is a,slruation thatan be ignored only at our peril. It is a situation for v which something can be done, but only if we takean objective look at our ideas-many of which arepreconceived. We must realize that the solutionsproposed and results obtained in the sorghumresearch field in developed countries, must beexamined very critically before being adopted orutilized as blueprints for attacking the serious andurgent problems of increasing sorghum production,particularly in Africa. I make no apology.therefore, for 'slanting' my remarks today onentomology, towards the developing world situation.Even a brief scan of the sorghum literatureshows that the developed world is exceptionallywell catered for, both by the amount and quality ofinformation being produced on sorghum in allscientific disciplines, including entomology.However, I suspect that in the 10 years since thelast sorghum symposium, the number of researchnd development workers, who are able to devote b eir full time to the sorghum crop in Africa andthe developing world has not increased to anywherenear the extent needed, to cope with thewell documented problems of feeding their rapidlyexpanding populations. Indeed the number ofsorghum research workers in the developingworld may well have decreased!

J C Davies, 'Pest Losses and Control of Damage on Sorghum in Developing Countries - The Realities and the Myths', pp.215-223, 2011