UK scientists have said the strange disease attacking bananas in farms in Kagera Region was not a disease but rather pests that eat banana roots as their food. The Prime Minister said this on Saturday when addressing residents of Muleba District in the region. He said reports which he received from the UK where samples of the affected banana had been sent for analysis indicate that the problem that hit Muleba and other parts of the region on banana infection was not related to banana diseases at all, but pests that eat banana roots as their food. "Experts have said the pests are easy to control and by the way these bananas have no health effects on human beings if one consumes them," said Pinda. He said experts have advised that farmers should clean up and remove weeds from their farms because the pests easily affect other plants like avocadoes and passion fruits.
The PM said the experts told him that the disease was caused by drought which hit the area recently. Panic had gripped many Kagera residents of losing their major staple, after bananas started wilting from what was believed to have been an attack by a strange disease. Some related the disease to HIV only that the former attacks banana plants while the latter affects human beings. The disease had posed a great threat to food security in the region and other areas that depend on banana farming. It is almost seven years since it spread into the region from Uganda, but the disease has already depleted several hundreds of acres of banana plantations mostly in Bukoba rural and Muleba districts.
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