Assessment of Health and Environment Effects of Mango Integrated Fruit fly Management Strategy in Meru County

Abstract

Mango is among the three most imperative crops in Kenya in terms production and crop area. However, mango production is limited by a number of issues, among which pests and fungal disease infestation are major. Among the pests, mango fruit fly present a real challenge to producers due to losses incurred at the farm level. Majority of the farmers have decided to use of pesticides which have negative impacts on health and environment. To promote sustainable and environmentally friendly agriculture, International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe) developed and implemented an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) fruit fly control package in Meru County, Kenya. Health and environmental impacts of this intervention, however, had not been evaluated. This study therefore evaluated the impact of this intervention on health and environment. The study used survey research design in which a structured questionnaire was administered to 371 randomly selected participants and non-participants from the intervention and control areas. Environmental Impact Quotient (EIQ) was used to determine the magnitude impact of IPM on health and environment while Endogenous regression was used to evaluate the impact of IPM on EIQ field use. Descriptive results indicated that on average EIQ field use for participants was lower with a difference of 2770.87 while empirical results indicate that adopters reduced EIQ field use by 6.81% after adopting IPM. This imply that IPM participants are better off in terms of health and environmental benefits of IPM. The study recommends expansion of IPM intervention to the entire mango growing area in Meru County to improve health and environmental conditions of farmers.