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science, health and technologyAlso in this section:
The coffee berry borer --- broca, as it is known in Panama --- is a little pest that can cause big economic losses. Photos courtesy of the US Department of Agriculture Last to fall by Joel Inwood Panama was the one Latin American coffee producing country that never suffered a broca infestation --- until now. In Bajo Cerron it recently made its first appearance in farms along the border with Costa Rica. The broca --- also known as the coffee berry borer --- eats coffee beans throughout the stages of both its and its host plant’s development. Panama’s Ministry of Agricultural Development (MIDA) estimates that losses could range from 30 to 80 percent of the gross for Panama’s coffee producers. Panama has 8,613 producers on 21,465 hectares of land that employ 32,000 permanent and 70,000 temporary workers, according to MIDA. The losses could be staggering. Daniel Peterson, the president of the Specialty Coffee Association of Panama, says that this year damages should be minor, but next year the threat is very serious. MIDA officials have been searching surrounding farms and quarantining the affected ones. They had yet to come into contact with the broca outside the Bajo Cerron area at the time this issue of The Panama News was published. Broca, or hypothenemus hampei, is originally from Africa, and is presumed to have arrived in Brazil around 1913, according to MIDA. In 1962 it was discovered in Peru: Guatemala 1971, Honduras 1977, Mexico and Jamaica 1978, El Salvador and Ecuador 1981, Nicaragua, Colombia and Cuba in 1990, Dominican Republic and Venezuela in 1995, and after Costa Rica in 2000 “it was just a matter of time,” said Peterson. The coffee bearer borer is a small black species of beetle. It passes through four stages: egg, larva, pupa and adult. The female adult is longer and slightly wider than the male. Though the number varies throughout the stages of infestation, the females generally outnumber the males. The head is globular and the antennae arched. The male lives between 50 and 75 days, while the female survives from 100 to 150. She can produce two or three eggs a day, which she leaves within the coffee beans themselves. According to MIDA the optimal range for broca is between 800 and 1,000 meters above sea level, and the insects do not represent an economic threat at altitudes higher than 1,200 meters. Those ranges, however, are questioned by some agronomists who maintain that the insects do damage higher up the mountains than MIDA believes is possible. The more shadow the higher the population density, according to MIDA. They require temperatures higher than 25 degrees Celsius and high humidity, as well. Broca usually arrives along with migrant coffee pickers, who bring coffee for personal use along with them from previous jobs, explained Peterson. Broca can be fought with either chemical of biological means. The broca has several natural predators from Africa. There are some varieties of wasps and other insects that weed out the broca in one way or another. There is also a fungus native to Latin America that can be used to control the plague. If the broca has advanced to over five percent of a farm, however, MIDA says it is necessary to use chemical pesticides. Endosulfan is the one they recommend. Peterson pointed out that quarantine policies in the law governing affected farms have raised some debate among farmers. A committee was created to oversee the prevention and containment of the broca by Resolution ALP-023-ADM-01 of April 3, 2001. The committee includes representatives from both government and farmers’ groups. Peterson says that broca can be controlled after it appears on one’s farm, but it will be another cost added onto rising labor costs and land values that Panamanian coffee farmers have to deal with, where a few cents per pound can make a large difference. MIDA’s broca awareness poster reads, “Watch out for the broca! Broca means: less production, less crop yield, more costs and less earnings.”
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