Pests and Diseases

Transboundary plant pests and diseases affect food crops, causing significant losses to farmers and threatening food security.

The spread of transboundary plant pests and diseases has increased dramatically in recent years. Globalization, trade and climate change, as well as reduced resilience in production systems due to decades of agricultural intensification, have all played a part.

Transboundary plant pests and diseases can easily spread to several countries and reach epidemic proportions. Outbreaks and upsurges can cause huge losses to crops and pastures, threatening the livelihoods of vulnerable farmers and the food and nutrition security of millions at a time.

The Santo 2018 Agriculture show has been a success. All agricultural products were showcased during the event making the show very successful and attracts a lot of people from the four Northern provinces.

Sustainable agricultural crop production is very important for people's livelihood in terms of food security which means that people need to have food supplies available and stable to guarantee healthy living.

Regular farmer training is very important to equip farmers with useful skills and knowledge specifically in agriculture to help them better cultivate their farm land taking into account the importance of crop resilience due to frequent natural disasters.

Vanuatu has very important cash crops including kava, cocoa, coconut and coffee. These cash crops contribute greatly to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth. To date there is an increase in kava production and a drop in copra production.