Abstracto

Homemade Organic Pesticides based on local plant materials for pest control for strawberry farming in Rwanda

Isaac Mubashankwaya, Fabien Nsanzabera, Faustin Kigabo, Alexis Manishimwe, Patrick Ndagijimana, Clementine Tuyisenge

This study aims to investigate homemade organic pesticides formulations and safe use in relation to organic strawberry farming in Rwanda. It is a noble result of the previous baseline study that was about to identify knowledge gaps, needs and priorities of value chain actors for strawberry in Rwanda under the Ecological Organic Agriculture Initiative Project (EOA). Therefore, many gaps on the availability of organic pesticides, appropriate formulations, the pest specific application, the time and frequency application were pointed out in this baseline study. In their traditional agricultural systems, organic farmers usually prepare homemade organic pesticides for both preventive and control measures of pests by using available natural resources without basing on any scientific study or facts. This could be questioned because scientific evidence of their efficacy and safety may not be available or accessible to the users. As this practice is very old and inherited from generation to generation up to now; to come up with scientific evidence, we have conducted a study on different raw materials used in preparing organic pesticides through the laboratory analysis. The plant materials used in this research were locally collected from the gardens of the farmers who grow organic strawberries in Gakenke Districts. These are as follows: Endod (Phytolacca dodecandra), papaya leaves (Carica papaya), marigold (Tagetes erecta), and chilli (Capsicum annuum). The results of the on-farm trials showed that all the organic pesticides produced from the present study contain active ingredients with pesticidal and repellent properties. Therefore, homemade organic pesticides sprayed on strawberry showed their efficacy with great success to control pests and prevent crop damage in the farmers’ gardens.