Sierra Leone

This manual provides clear, actionable information on the most important pests and diseases that affect the major food crops grown by smallholder farmers in Africa. Crops covered are: cereals (maize, millet, sorghum, rice), legumes (groundnuts, beans and cowpeas) roots and tubers (cassava, sweet potato, yam) and banana.

For each pest or disease, information is provided on how to recognise the problem, what to do to prevent it occurring and how to control it when it occurs. The management options for each pest or disease are divided into ‘cultural approaches’, such as use of resistant varieties, clean seed, crop rotations and good hygiene in the field, and ‘chemical approaches’, which involve the use of appropriate pesticides. In addition information is provided on the organism that causes the problem and its impact. Finally, a short list of publications and websites is given where additional information can be obtained.

A team of plant health experts has compiled this information; in doing so they have drawn upon the latest research and information available in 2015.

Manual to support data entry into the OFRA shared database which is used as the basis of producing fertilizer optimisation tools.