ASIA / PACIFIC
October 6, 2014
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 5
Indonesia enlists wasps in war on crop killer
By Margie Mason
The Associated Press
OGOR, Indonesia — They are the
size of a pinhead and don’t even
pack a sting, but the tiny wasps
are cold-blooded killers nonetheless. They
work as nature’s SWAT team, neutralizing
a pest that threatens to destroy one of the
developing world’s most important staple
foods: cassava.
The wasps are being released in
Indonesia, the latest country threatened
by the mealybug. It’s a chalky white insect
shaped like a pill that’s been making its
way across Southeast Asia’s fields for the
past six years. The pest first appeared in
Indonesia in 2010 and Bogor on the
outskirts of Indonesia’s capital of Jakarta
was ground zero.
But unlike in Thailand, where
infestations reached some 618,000 acres of
crops grown mostly as part of a huge
export business, cassava in Indonesia is a
vital local food source second only to rice.
That makes the mealybug a serious threat
to food security in Indonesia, which
already has one of the region’s highest
child malnutrition rates.
The parasitic wasps, or Anagyrus lopezi,
need the mealybug to survive. Females lay
their eggs inside the insect and as the
larvae grow, they eat the bug from the
inside out, slowly killing it until there’s
nothing left but its mummified shell.
Scientists put 3,000 wasps into a secure
tent-like habitat in an affected field in
Bogor. They will be monitored to see how
well they handle local conditions as they
multiply to an expected 450,000 within a
month. Once a government permit is
obtained, the wasps can be released into
the wild to start their relentless killing
spree.
It’s unclear how much damage mealy-
bugs have already caused to Indonesia’s
crops, but infestations have been reported
on the main cassava-growing island of
Java and in parts of Sumatra, said Kris
Wyckhuys, an entomologist at the
Colombia-based International Center for
Tropical Agriculture, which is helping to
coordinate the release.
He said the idea is to introduce the
wasps early in a pre-emptive strike
because the pests, if left unchecked, can
destroy more than 80 percent of a harvest
by sucking the plant’s sap until it withers
and dies.
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Retirement
“It is entering into areas where it is
expected to cause the biggest yield impact
and the biggest impact on food security
and on cassava-related livelihoods,”
Wyckhuys said.
Cassava farmer Wahyu Hidayat said
the pests hit about three hectares of his
five-hectare crop four years ago. The
leaves started shrivelling and falling off
the plants that grow up to four meters tall,
and no one had ever seen anything like it.
It lowered production from five kilos of
cassava from one tree down to two kilos.
“It’s really difficult for us,” he said,
welcoming the government’s wasp
intervention. “As a traditional farmer, we
didn’t know how to deal with it.”
Indonesia is one of the world’s top
producers of cassava, planting around 1
million hectares (2.5 million acres) a year,
half of which is eaten as a staple food
across the sprawling archipelago of 240
million people.
The long roots of the shrub-like plant are
a major source of carbohydrates and
provide an array of nutrients. Like the
potato, cassava is a versatile starch that’s
an essential part of daily meals across
much of the developing world. In
Indonesia it is boiled and fried, and made
into noodles, crackers, and even cakes.
Known elsewhere as manioc, tapioca,
and yucca, it is also made into livestock
feed and used as an ingredient in a variety
of products worldwide, ranging from
lipstick and artificial sweeteners to paint
and glucose IV drips.
Portuguese traders first brought the
plant from South America centuries ago,
and many of the world’s poorest people
today depend on it for survival. It grows
well in bad soil conditions and doesn’t need
much water, making it ideal for hot areas
hit by drought.
It is especially important in Africa,
which suffered a massive mealybug attack
in the 1980s. Wasps were first imported
there from Paraguay and released across
the continent by airplane. The method was
effective, wiping out up to 95 percent of the
bugs in some areas, and has been credited
with averting famine and saving $20
billion.
Wyckhuys said the wasps have not
created any unintended problems within
ecosystems since the so called pink
mealybugs only eat cassava and the tiny
wasps only eat mealybugs. However, he
said it’s impossible to eradicate all of the
MEALYBUG MENACE. A student at Bogor Agri-
cultural University (left photo) looks at pest pink cas-
sava mealybugs at a laboratory in Bogor, West Java,
Indonesia. They are the size of a pinhead and don’t
even pack a sting, but tiny wasps are cold-blooded
killers nonetheless. They work as nature’s SWAT team,
neutralizing a pest that threatens to destroy one of the
developing world’s most important staple foods: cas-
sava. The wasps are being released in Indonesia, the
latest country threatened by the mealybug (right
photo), a chalky white insect shaped like a pill that’s
been making its way across Southeast Asia’s fields
for the past six years. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)
pests because the wasps must keep some
hosts alive in order to keep from dying out
themselves.
Mealybugs, or Phenacoccus manihoti,
are believed to have hitchhiked into
Thailand in 2008, most likely aboard
cassava cuttings transported from Africa.
But without the wasps to keep them in
check, they quickly spread to Laos,
Cambodia, and Vietnam.
Small releases have been conducted
within those countries, and the wasps im-
ported in 2009 to Thailand have also slow-
ly migrated into neighboring countries.
The wasps have vastly improved the
problem in Thailand, the world’s largest
cassava exporter, but not eliminated it
entirely. Several wasp releases are
planned in different parts of Indonesia
using insects brought from Thailand.
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