ABSTRACT
The aim of the project was to improve the welfare of poor farmers in Malawi by reducing crop losses from insect pests, weeds and diseases, and to encourage the adoption of low-cost, sustainable pest-management strategies. Numerous insect pests attack maize, but there are wide variations in the insects involved and the degree of severity of the attack, and in relation to the stage in the plants’ life-cycle at which they are attacked. Cassava is attacked by a great diversity of insect pests, but significantly it seems resistant to the larger grasshoppers. Local people simply refer to the larva of the diamond-back moth as mbozi, and one of the main forms of control used by local people is the insecticide Carbaryl. Ministry of Agriculture recommendations for the chemical control of the pest in the past have included DDT, and now include Carbaryl or endosulfan.
