Farmers’ Knowledge of Pests and Diseases in the Coffee-Banana Agroforestry Systems of Mid-Eastern Uganda

These crops are often grown together in agroforestry systems to enhance land-use efficiency, provide shade to coffee, supply mulch materials, and reduce soil erosion. However, productivity of both crops remains far below attainable yields due to biotic factors, particularly the emergence/resurgence of pests and diseases. The black coffee twig borer (BCTB) and coffee wilt disease (CWD) are significant pests and diseases affecting coffee production in Uganda. The BCTB is a major insect pest infesting coffee, with 46% of respondents mentioning it as a common pest. The CWD is a major disease affecting coffee, with 72% of respondents reporting it as a common disease. Farmers' knowledge of BCTB was significantly dependent on sex, but not age or education of the respondent. On the other hand, their knowledge of CWD was not dependent on age, sex, or educational level. For bananas, the banana weevils and banana xanthomonas wilt (BXW) are significant pests and diseases affecting production. The banana weevils were mentioned by 21% of respondents as a common pest, while the BXW was mentioned by 84% of respondents as a common disease. More than 50% of respondents were employing cultural practices for managing BCTB, CWD, banana weevil, nematodes, black ants (kaasa), and BXW. However, more than 65% of respondents had limited knowledge of managing the biting ants, mites, coffee leaf rust, and red blister disease, caterpillars, and black sigatoka. The study aimed to determine farmers' knowledge of pests and diseases of coffee and bananas as well as their coping mechanisms in the coffee-banana agroforestry systems of mid-eastern Uganda. The study was conducted in seven districts selected randomly, namely: Jinja, Kamuli, Luuka, Buyende, Bugiri, Kaliro, and Namutumba. A structured questionnaire with both open and closed-ended questions was administered to 10 purposively selected households in each district. The questionnaire elicited farmers' knowledge on pests and diseases as well as their coping mechanisms in managing these biotic stresses. The data were entered in Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, and descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data to generate means, ranges, standard deviations, and frequencies. A simple logistic regression analysis was used to define the relationship between farmers' knowledge of pests and diseases as well as their coping mechanisms and the socio-demographic characteristics (sex, age, and education). The data analysis was done in SAS v. 9.1 for Windows. The results showed that the respondents interviewed in the mid-eastern coffee growing region of Uganda possessed knowledge of the insect pests infesting their coffee, mentioning four insect pests, namely, the black coffee twig borer (BCTB), biting ants, stem borers, and mites. The BCTB was the most commonly mentioned insect pest of coffee, with 46% of the respondents mentioning it. The study emphasizes the results of a countrywide biological assessment of BCTB conducted in 2016, which reported that this region had the highest BCTB infestation.