Phnom Penh: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Cambodia in partnership with the General Directorate of Agriculture of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries hold a training workshop on National Cassava Mosaic Disease (CMD) Surveillance in Cambodia. This five-day training workshop started on 23 January in Phnom Penh. 

The event gathers 22 government officials from the Department of Plant Protection, Sanitary and Phytosanitary and different provincial departments of agriculture of the main cassava producing provinces. The objectives of the training are to strengthen the national CMD surveillance programme, systems and management capabilities, supporting the implementation of international and regional surveillance standards through the provision of technical training, reference manuals, online learning resources and surveillance tools. The training will strengthen the management of CMD plant pest risks, support plant pest status, enhance pest risk analysis and facilitate information sharing amongst the key Cambodian stakeholder groups.

“The training would provide participants with knowledge on national surveillance system management, surveillance planning and prioritization, surveillance operation and communication,” said H.E Dr. Mak Soeun, Deputy Director-General of the General Directorate of Agriculture, in his opening remarks.

Mr. Oum Kosal, Assistant FAO Representative (Programme) in Cambodia, in his welcome remarks, confirmed that “cassava plays an important role in agriculture, economic growth and development in Cambodia. It has become the second largest agricultural crop after rice.” He continued that the production has been growing rapidly during the last decade, from less than 30 thousand hectares in 2004 to more than 500 thousand hectares in 2015, with a total production of more than 13 million tonnes.

This training is a part of the project Strengthening Capacity in Managing the Incursion of Cassava Mosaic Virus Infestation in Cambodia funded by FAO. The project was formulated at the request of the Royal Government of Cambodia to build capacity of the National Plant Protection Organization (NPPO) to control the disease and reduce its threats to cassava industry in Cambodia. The main focus of the project is to develop human and institutional capacity within the responsible government of pest management and plant quarantine organization to carry forward the cassava pest and disease surveillance, diagnosis and monitoring, and to take appropriate actions to control and prevent the spread of the disease.

In December 2015, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) reported a suspicious presence of new disease of cassava called “Cassava Mosaic Disease” in Ratanakiri, the northeastern province of Cambodia. This disease is believed can severely damage cassava yield. The yield of infested cassava fields can be reduced up to 80 percent or been totally damaged in serious case. This CMD was only reported in Africa, India and Sri Lanka but was not known to occur in the South East Asia region. The suspicious detection of this disease in Cambodia has placed an alert to the cassava industry in term of plant quarantine to prevent seed movement from suspected area to other growing areas and initiate quick action to suppress the infestation towards eradication.