Grower adoption of an integrated pest management package for management of mango-infesting fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) in Embu, Kenya.

Abstract

Mango (Mangifera indica L.) is a well-recognized fruit of economic and nutritional importance to smallholder farmers across Africa. Production and marketing of this fruit is, however, severely hampered by fruit fly infestation that is responsible for enormous fruit losses. In Kenya, control of this pest is primarily dependent on the use of chemical pesticides, a strategy that has been shown to be ineffective. Although the recently introduced fruit fly integrated pest management (IPM) package developed by the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe) has proved to be effective against this pest, there is little demonstrable investigation on its adoption to assess the factors likely to influence its acceptance among producers. A household survey was conducted among 805 randomly sampled mango farmers, and a negative binomial regression model was applied to the data in order to identify the factors influencing the intensity of the adoption of the fruit fly IPM package. Results revealed that 58.5% of the sampled mango farmers adopted at least one component of the fruit fly IPM package. Empirical results indicated that education of the household head, number of mature mango trees planted, keeping records of mango enterprise, use of protective clothing during spraying and participation in the IPM training at demonstration sites have a positive influence on the intensity of the adoption of the fruit fly IPM package in Embu, situated in eastern Kenya.