The phytosanitary surveillance tasks carried out by the Peruvian Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation - MINAGRI, through the National Agrarian Health Service - SENASA, keep banana and plantain crops free of the Fusarium oxysporum f. sp cubense Race 4 Tropical - FocR4T, protecting the production of 170,000 hectares of this fruit, which is the basis of food security for the Amazonian population.

"To keep Peru free of the plague, we carry out preventive actions to prevent its entry, dispersal and establishment in our country," says Miguel Quevedo Valle, SENASA National Chief.

As an authority in agricultural health, it executes an action plan to prevent the entry and establishment of the plague in Peru, focusing on surveillance, containment and eradication, activities that are carried out in 17 banana regions of the country on the north coast and jungle. For this work, field surveys are carried out permanently, which includes taking samples of suspicious plants to detect the pest by means of its identification in the laboratory.

The risk of entry of the disease to Peru is high due to the existing border crossings with Ecuador, Colombia and Brazil, since the informal trade of vegetative material can occur; Therefore, SENASA strengthens quarantine measures at external checkpoints and international airports to protect the crops of more than 143,648 small Peruvian producers that could be seriously affected.

SENASA, INIA and the CIAT-Bioversity International alliance have strengthened knowledge and capacities in diagnosis and good practices in the face of the threat of Fusarium and other pests in the workshop 'Field diagnosis and evaluation of pests and diseases of musaceae in Peru' .

More than 50 people from all over the country are trained in this meeting, which has served to improve the technical capabilities of specialists and optimally carry out field actions against these pests.

Fusarium is a fungus (Fusarium oxysporum f. Sp. Cubense) found in contaminated soils and infected plant materials, it produces a disease that can be transmitted by agricultural machinery or by the mobilization of people. It can infect most varieties of Musaceae but mainly attacks the Cavendish variety, the most cultivated in the world.