Author(s)

Zerihun Yemataw^1*, Awole Zeberga², Sadik Muzemil¹, Fikre Handoro³, Mikias Yeshitla⁴

¹Southern Agricultural Research Institute, Areka Agricultural Research Center, Areka, Ethiopia.
²Hawassa University, Hawassa, Ethiopia.
³Southern Agricultural Research Institute, Hawassa Agricultural Research Center, Hawassa, Ethiopia.
⁴International Potato Center, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia.

Enset bacterial wilt (EXW) caused by Xanthomonas campestris pv. musacearum is the major constraint in enset-based farming system. The opportunity to provide integrated EXW management options has opened a new vista and is enhanced by well-informed communities who are aware of the management approach available to them. We hypothesized that differential success in EXW control is mainly due to approach used in the EXW control. It is the responsibility of the research institute to adequately inform these communities via a combination of community mobilization and awareness creation. This paper therefore assessed the importance of stake holders’ mobilization and awareness creation for the promotion of technologies for EXW control in Ethiopia among 2010-2012. Individual interviews and direct on-farm participatory monitoring and observation with 60 farm households, key informant interviews, relevant secondary data, literature and inter-personal data were collected from unpublished progress report from National Enset Research Project, elderly people and senior experts. Results showed that about 25.6% of farmers’ field was infected by the disease in 2007 and the level reached 54.5% in 2010. End line assessment has shown that the disease prevalence declined to 10 percent in 2013. Disease incidence has shown that the intensity was highest in 2010; that is on average more than 17 enset were infected by the disease and shown significant decline in 2013 to about 1 infected enset on the infected fields. The intervention brought about promising step-ups in controlling the devastation by EXW. This intervention demonstrated that the disease impact can be minimized to a significant level if community mobilization and awareness creation with other local formal and informal institutions go hand in hand to out scale the experience to a wider range of enset farming communities.

Awareness Creation, Community Mobilization, Enset, Enset Xanthomonas Wilt, Integrated Management, Gurage Zone

Yemataw, Z. , Zeberga, A. , Muzemil, S. , Handoro, F. and Yeshitla, M. (2016) Community Mobilization and Awareness Creation for the Management of Enset Xanthomonas Wilt (EXW): The Case of Gerino Enset Tekil Kebele Administration, Gurage Zone, Southern Ethiopia. American Journal of Plant Sciences, 7, 1765-1781. doi: 10.4236/ajps.2016.713165.