Evaluation of The Magnitude of Citus Yield Losses Due to African Citrus Triozid, False Codling Moth, the Greening Disease and Other Pests of Economic Importance in Kenya

Pests and diseases have continued to hamper productivity of the horticultural inductry round the globe. The Kenyan citrus industry is no exemption with a huge decline on its perfomance over the last decade. Although faced with numerous challenges including low productivity, inadequate capacity to buy farm inputs, lack of improved crop varieties, insect pests and diseases are cited to be the most appalling attribute to the decline in citrus productivity. Key among them are the African Citrus Triozid (ACT) and False Codling Moth (FCM) pests and the Greening disease. The objective of this paper was to evaluate the magnitude of citrus yield losses due to these three major pests and disease. Primary data was utilized and obtained from farmers and key informants from two major citrus producing counties in Kenya. Results on magnitude of citrus yield losses show that ACT, HLB and FCM leads to proportional losses of 8.6%, 10.6% and 15.86% respectively. This translates to economic losses of USD 933.88, 1528.27 and 2396 per hectare due to ACT, HLB and FCM respectively. The losses impact significantly on the livelihoods of the citrus farmers, and thus may render the citrus industry unsustainable if no intervention measures are put in place. Keywords: False Codling Moth, African Citrus Trioza, Greening disease, citrus, Yield loss DOI: 10.7176/JESD/10-20-11 Publication date:October 31st 201