FAO Launches Xf Prevention Program in North Africa and Middle East

The program will work to improve the technical capacity of local institutions and farmers and raise awareness on how to prevent the spread of Xf through early detection, diagnosis, monitoring, and phytosanitary measures.

By Isabel Putinja
Sep. 15, 2016 11:44 UTC
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A tech­ni­cal coop­er­a­tion pro­gram has been launched by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) with the aim of pre­vent­ing the spread of Xylella fas­tidiosa (Xf) in North Africa and the Middle East.
See Also:Xylella Fastidiosa Articles and Updates
The aim of the project to facil­i­tate early detec­tion, diag­no­sis and mon­i­tor­ing of Xf, a bac­te­ria that has caused the wide­spread dev­as­ta­tion of olive trees in Italy’s Apulia region.

The tech­ni­cal coop­er­a­tion pro­gram will work to improve the tech­ni­cal capac­ity of local insti­tu­tions and farm­ers and raise aware­ness on how to pre­vent the spread of Xf through early detec­tion, diag­no­sis, mon­i­tor­ing, and phy­tosan­i­tary mea­sures. It began in response to requests by the gov­ern­ments of the seven tar­get coun­tries, which include Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine and Tunisia.

The pro­gram was offi­cially launched in Tunis on August 29, 2016 with a five-day work­shop that addressed the plan­ning of activ­i­ties related to the project, and the design­ing of an action plan for its oper­a­tional imple­men­ta­tion.

Following the detec­tion of Xf in olive trees in Apulia in 2013, the bac­te­ria later spread to the French island of Corsica and south­east­ern France in 2015. Prevention mea­sures such as the pro­gram launched by the FAO are seen as imper­a­tive to pre­vent the poten­tial spread of Xf to other regions of the world.



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