Previous research indicates that some important cocoa cultivated areas in West Africa will become unsuitable for growing cocoa in the next decades. However, it is not clear if this change will be mirrored by the shade tree species that could be used in cocoa-based agroforestry systems (C-AFS). We...

Establishment of a tree canopy in Cocoa Agroforestry Systems (C-AFS) provides higher carbon stocks and other ecosystem services compared with other agricultural land uses. These systems are eligible for incentive schemes for carbon sequestration but need to be optimally designed to ensure that they ...

Filamentous basidiomycetes are uncommon agents of human diseases, despite their ubiquitous presence in the environment. We present a case of symptomatic pulmonary infection in a 38-year-old male with cough and fever; a thin-walled cyst in the posterior left upper pulmonary lobe was revealed by...

Food security can be defined as having access to sufficient food for dietary needs and food preference. However, currently 1 in 9 people globally are estimated to be undernourished - the vast majority living in developing countries. Undernutrition causes an estimated wasting/severe wasting of 52...

Increasing crop pests and diseases have become a global concern posing a serious threat to food security. Farmers are in dire need of timely, relevant and practical advisory services that can help them mitigate such challenges. There are apparent. gaps and limitations in conventional extension...

Concerns about food safety have led many consuming markets such as the European Union (EU), USA and Japan, to enact legislation concerning accepted levels of pesticides and other harmful substances in imported commodities such as cocoa. Such legislation reduces cocoa producing countries ability to...

Spodoptera frugiperda (J. E. Smith) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) is a polyphagous pest indigenous throughout the Americas, which recently appeared in Africa, first reported from São Tomé, Nigeria, Bénin and Togo in 2016, and which we now report from Ghana. This species is recognised to comprise two...

In August 2016, unusual symptoms were observed on cacao pods on farms in Crooked River located in the parish of Clarendon in Jamaica. Examination of affected pods and fungal spores led to a tentative diagnosis of frosty pod rot. The causal pathogen was isolated and identified as Moniliophthora...

Over 150,000 households in Papua New Guinea (PNG) depend upon cocoa for their livelihoods but yields are threatened by a number of factors including the cocoa pod borer (CPB). A prolific pest that is extremely difficult to eradicate, CPB can devastate cocoa crops, inflicting losses of 80-90%, with...