More than 500 citrus growers from Hato Mayor and El Seibo in the Dominican Republic, with some 300,000 cultivated areas have been battling a locust plague for the past five years. A plague that has infected plantations with the disease known as Huanglongbing (HLB), generating losses and damages of hundreds of millions of pesos.
The insect, which they believe was infected by contaminated plants in the northern region in open plant nurseries, has forced large and medium producers to diversify crops in their fields to be able to meet financial commitments and avoid total collapse.
The presence of the locusts are more tangible in the orange fields of Citrus East Consortium companies, Barceló and Agro company BHS located in the Juan Jiménez section in the agricultural town of El Valle, where hundreds of thousands of plants have been eliminated because they were contaminated by the disease that caused by the insect.
Producers have tried to eliminate the pest by spraying pesticides by land and air, but this doubles production costs rendering the orange production unprofitable both for export and the domestic markets.
“The plague is advancing rapidly and requires actions that are effective, such as spraying pesticides by air to remove the vector. This could take us to bankruptcy”, said Ricardo Barcelo, from the Citrus East Consortium.
Source: Listindiario.com.do