The Tropical Whitefly IPM Project (TWFP) of the CGIAR's Systemwide Program on Integrated Pest Management (SP-IPM) has almost completed Phase II. CIAT is responsible for coordinating this Project and its various subprojects in the Americas, Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. Several donors fund these projects, including the Department for International Development (DFID) of the UK, the United States and New Zealand Agencies for International Development (USAID and NZAID, respectively), and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).

The subprojects' activities in research and development are coordinated by CIAT, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), and the World Vegetable Center (AVRDC). The International Potato Center (CIP) has also participated in the Project. It now holds the Chair of the SP-IPM.

Phase II achievements include:

• Pilot testing of some of the most important IPM strategies identified during Phase I.
  
• Release of a whitefly-resistant cassava variety by the Colombian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. The variety, Nataima-31, had been tested during Phase I
  
• Implementation of integrated pest management components in the Andean Region, including monitoring of whitefly populations, refining action thresholds, developing sampling methodologies, and monitoring insecticide resistance in the whitefly Trialeurodes vaporariorum.
  
• Successful control of whitefly- and aphid-transmitted viruses by small farmers in Central America and Mexico. The farmers had used physical barriers or microtunnels, and had received considerable economic gains.
  
• Recent development of resistant varieties, which will soon be available to farmers.

The Project's coordination met recently at CABI in the UK to begin developing and funding Phase III of the SP-IPM's TWFP.

Contact: Francisco Morales