Devouring profit - International Coffee Organization

enefit seen as a consequence of the adoption of this system is the maintenance of
the ecological balance in the coffee area and hence sustainability of the coffee regions
in Colombia (Cadena, 1991). Cenicafé has designed a group of technological components
for the management of this pest, which have been transferred to the coffee
growers through the extension service of the National Federation of Coffee Growers
over the last decade. This has been carried out using an educational campaign, which
has as a main goal the continued production of good quality exportable parchment
coffee despite the presence of CBB (Saldías, 1996).
The strategy stresses cultural control, which consists of maintaining the coffee plots
free of ripe, over ripe and dry coffee beans through frequent collections (Federación
Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia, 1994, 1995). This activity (“Re-re”) reduces the
CBB populations and avoids the build up of fallen berries, which are an important
source of new infestations.
Another component is field sampling of CBB to establish the infestation level of CBB
and should be, as explained previously, the baseline to take actions related to pest
control. Sampling allows farmers also to know the “hot spots” in the coffee plots (foci
of infestation where for some reason CBB is more concentrated) and, if dissections
are made, to become aware of the state of progress of the CBB’s penetration to the
endosperm. To record flowerings is also important in order to know the critical periods
of CBB attacks. There have also been several advances in CBB management during
the post harvesting process (Bustillo et al., 1998).
Technology adoption: since the introduction of the IPM strategy, Cenicafé has stressed
that the various components are divisible, and that IPM is not a ‘package’ of control
measures that need to be adopted concurrently. Some components, such as evaluation,
are effectively pre-requisites to the effective use of others, such as chemical
control. Few farmers though have adopted sampling. Cenicafé recommends that growers
decide on which control components to deploy according to the level of infestation
and the resources available.
Cenicafé assessed the adoption of the various IPM components by growers. The results
suggested that cultural control (Re-re) is by far the most common control method.
Table 18 describes the adoption of IPM components in Colombia (Duque et al., 2000).
Table 18. Indices of adoption of IPM components in 2000.
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