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FAO Drafted Into Fight Against Giant African Snail
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FAO Drafted Into Fight Against Giant African Snail
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Contact: John Emmanuel Friday, September 22, 2000 - The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has begun receiving assistance from the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in managing the latest agricultural pest – the Giant African Snail. The first phase of that assistance got underway earlier this week with a visit here by Entomologist Dr. Gene Pollard. According to Dr. Pollard the presence of the Giant African Snail on St. Lucian soil represents an unusual occurrence with the only report of the pest in the region being in the French Islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe back in the 1980’s. The snails have developed a nasty reputation in countries where they have been able to establish themselves, but according to the expert there’s no need for panic in St. Lucia’s case. "Householders are seeing this pest in their gardens crawling about at nights in fairly high numbers, but it is not going to devastate their gardens in the way for example the Pink Mealy Bug was able to do. I think that one has to have a sense of balance. Aesthetically the Giant African Snail is not pleasing to the eye. Potentially yes, it could be of some economic importance but one has to first of all determine the extent of the infestation and then devise measures to contain it," Pollard said. Since the discovery of the Giant African Snail on the island a few months ago, agricultural officials say local efforts to date have been able to contain the pest and limit it to the northern portion of the island. The medium to long-term goal however is to collaborate with the FAO in developing a sustainable management programme. St. Lucia’s Director of Agricultural Services Julius Polius says the package of assistance from the FAO would mostly likely focus on developing a system for managing the pest as oppose to totally eradicating it. "It would be management with eradication as an option but by and large I suspect that FAO assistance is going to focus largely on management. I’m not sure whether or not we can eradicate the giant African Snail at this point, but it’s part of the FAO’s work in terms of assessing the situation on the ground. Then we may be advised as to whether we can eradicate it totally or not," said Polius. Several containment measures for dealing with the Giant African Snail have already surfaced including eating them as is done in certain parts of the world. However agriculture officials say given the absence of a snail eating culture on the island, such a measure may be a bitter mouthful to swallow. The Ministry says the snails will mostly likely be collected on a grand scale and subsequently disposed off. In the meantime the Ministry of Agriculture is to issue a declaration having the Giant African Snail tagged as a notifyable pest. Such a declaration coming from the Cabinet of Ministers would provide the Ministry of Agriculture with the necessary muscle to take swift and effective action towards eradicating the pest. |
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