Farmers in Tanzania will detect and fight against Banana Bunchy Top Disease (BBTD) following the development of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tech project developed by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA.

The Regional Emergency Response Plan To Control the Banana Bunchy Top Disease (BBTD) Outbreak in East Africa project, worth over US$300,000 majors in the development of key technologies to assist the farmers to cheat the virus-based disease, among others.

Giving an exclusive interview with The Guardian at the ongoing 31st Tanzania Agricultural International Exhibition, Rudolf Shirima, a researcher at IITA expressed that the disease is caused by a virus known as Banana Bunchy Top Virus (BBTV).

He added the disease which has so far destroyed a huge percentage of banana plantations across the country has no chemical cure because all the cultivated banana and plantain varieties are susceptible to Banana Bunchy Top Disease.

"The disease is caused by a virus known as Banana Bunchy Top Virus (BBTV). The virus is transmitted by an insect vector, the banana aphid (Pentalonia nigronervosa), or through the use of infected planting material (sticker,in vitro plants, or shoots from micropropagation of corms)," he expressed.

To curtail the disease, he said through the project, IITA has developed digital artificial intelligence facilities to help farmers to detect the disease.

"IITA is working in sync with the Ministry of Agriculture, the Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI), and the Tanzania Plant Health and Pesticides Authority (TPHPA) to disseminate to the farmers key agronomic knowledge and skills to fight against the disease," he said.

He added that the vision is to contain further spread of the virus to allow banana farmers to heighten production and productivity.

"We're using several different approaches to assist the farmers to battle against the disease, apart from the use of the artificial intelligence facilities," he said.

He said the reliable solution to curtail the disease was a total uprooting of the infected banana plants to limit further spread.

The disease causes crop loss between 90 and 100pc in just one season after infection, which means, farmers will lose all the income they used to generate from the sales of fruits in the market, according to him.

The other method against the disease that the project is training the farmers, he said was the use of special pesticides to kill the disease's vector virus, banana aphid (Pentalonia nigronervosa).

 "We're also training the banana farmers how to develop and spread the infected banana plants soap forms as the way to kill the virus," he added.

In further efforts, he said the institute was also working to support the production of safe and quality banana seeds to overcome the disease.

"Among the ways for the spread of this disease is dissemination and use of contaminated (affected) banana seeds," he observed.

Since the inception of the project, he however said there had been good results because many farmers have so far managed to acquire vital skills and technologies to lessen the disease.

BBTD was reported for the first time in Tanzania in 2023 in Buhigwe district, Kigoma region. 

As of October 2023, the disease has spread in many regions, including Dar es Salaam, Coastal, Morogoro, Mbeya, Dodoma, Kilimanjaro and Mwanza.

The disease has spread widely and caused extensive damage in Kigoma, Kilimanjaro, and Mwanza.