On an invitation from the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, Liu Shusheng, professor from the Institute of Insect Sciences, together with Professor Wang Xiaowei and Dr. Wang Hualing, attended the inception meeting of the African Cassava Whitefly project, which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, in Kampala, Uganda from February 27th to March 6th.
The project was officially approved by the foundation in October, 2014. The project, through its four-year implementation (2014-2018), seeks to provide a rigorous understanding of the causes of super-abundant cassava whitefly populations in East and Central Africa to thereby create the foundations for future, durable-control solutions. The project is hosted at the Natural Resources Institute, The University of Greenwich, United Kingdom and includes 13 sub-grantees from 11 countries including Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, USA, Colombia, Israel, Australia, Spain, UK, France and China.
Following rice and maize, cassava is the third most important staple food in the tropics. Five hundred million people in the world depend on cassava as a staple food, and the majority of them are residents of East and Central Africa. Since the 1990s, an unprecedented increase in the infestation of the cassava-whitefly, Bemisia tabaci, has caused significant damage to cassava and in the worst cause more than 50% of yield losses have been recorded. The cassava whiteflies has been responsible for vectoring the plant viruses that have caused two on-going and devastating pandemics, Cassava Mosaic Disease (CMD) and Cassava Brown Streak Disease (CBSD). Estimates for cassava production losses in nine East and Central African countries have been put as high as 47% and the areas affected are continuing to expand, resulting in hunger, recurrent famines and annual losses of more than US$1.25 billion.
During the meeting, the research strategies, methodologies and possible challenges, as well as ways to facilitate collaboration among the project team members, were discussed in detail among the participants. It is anticipated that the implementation of the project will accelerate the breeding of resistant varieties and developing of new vector control methods, and thus reduce the yield losses of cassava in East Africa.
During this meeting, the Program Officer Dr. Christina Owen, Project Leader Professor John Colvin and Professor Liu Shusheng discussed the plan for Zhejiang University’s participation in this project. With international leading expertise in the research of whitefly systematics and whitefly-begomoviruses-plant interactions, Zhejiang University will play a key role in this project. The participation in this project will not only enable Zhejiang University to make important contributions to the implementation of the project, but also further improve our research in the areas of whitefly-begomoviruses interactions and invasion biology.
Photos: Professor Liu Shusheng (the second from the right), Professor Wang Xiaowei (the first from the left), Dr. Wang Hualing (the first from the right), Dr. Christina Owen (Program Officer of Gates Foundation, the fourth from the left), Professor John Colvin (Project Leader, the third from the left), and Dr. Christopher Abu Omongo (National Agricultural Research Organization, Uganda; the second from the left) at the project inception meeting.