This is a dudu world

THE STATUS OF INSECT SCIENCE
IN THE TROPICAL WORLD:

A series of ICIPE Annual Public
Lectures Delivered by the
ICIPE Director

“THIS IS A DUDU WORLD’

By

Professor Thomas R. Odhiambo

First Lecture 4th June 197S
ICIPE Research Centre NAIROBI

THE INTERNATIONAL CENTRE OF
INSECT PHYSIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY

P.O. BOX 30772, NAIROBI, KENYA

THE STATUS OF INSECT SCIENCE
IN THE TROPICAL WORLD

THE SERIES or ICIPE Annual Public Lectures will be devoted to
the general theme of "The Status of Insect Science in the Tropical
World". In It the ICIPE Director will each year examine the
problems and progress of insect scientific research In all its many
manifestations, but especially in the way it contributes to national
development in Tropical Africa. The ICIPE is interested in in¬
vestigating new frontiers of insect science, in using this knowledge to
design novel methods for pest control on a long-term basis, and in
building up the capabilities of the African scientific community in
meeting these challenges. The inaugural lecture in this Series was
delivered on Wednesday 4th June, I97S.

In this lecture Professor Thomas R. Odhiambo examines the Im¬
portant role the rich insect fauna of tropical Africa has played in its
history, health and economic life. He contends that a more
imaginative look needs to be taken of this bludgeoning biological

vlronmental stance, the shortage of fertilizers, and the impending
shortage of synthetic pesticides, new challenges are before mankind
to discover new management practices for this crucial portion of our
biological world. Professor Odhiambo sets the scene for subsequent
annual lectures which will examine the new successses, the
promising lines of investigations, and the emerging areas of

8 Professor Thomas R. Odhiambo came to Nairobi in July 1965 af¬
ter spending six years at Queens' College, Cambridge, during which
he obtained his degrees of B.A., M.A. and Ph.D., the latter in insect
physiology. His years in Cambridge were crowned by many
scholastic adventures, and were financed by a scholarship from the
Uganda Government. Previous to that, from mid-1959, Professor
Odhiambo worked in Uganda as an Assistant Agricultural Officer,

Ngiya, before going to Maseno for his secondary education. He en¬
tered the then Makerere College in 1950, and spent four years there,
the last two of which he used to specialise in Entomology,
Nematology, and Soil Biology. He then joined the Tea Research In-

stilute of East Africa at Kericho, where he worked as a Technical
Officer for eighteen months before joining the Uganda Ministry of
Agriculture.

He joined the University of Nairobi in 1965 as a Special Lecturer
in Zoology, under the Rockefeller Foundation scheme for staff
training. Two years later he became Senior Lecturer, and in 1968 he
was appointed to a Readership in Zoology in recognition of his
research achievements. On the establishement of a new Department
of Entomology in early 1970, he became its first Professor of En¬
tomology and Head of Department. In April 1970, he also became
the first Dsf the newly established Faculty of Agriculture.

Professor Odhiambo has served in many capacities in Kenya, as a
Board member in many institutions, and has participated in many in¬
ternational forums discussing technical advances in science as well as

Professor Odhiambo is the Director of the International Centre of
Insect Physiology and Ecology, which, though an independent in¬
stitution. is closely associated with the University and is located on its
Chiromo Campus.

THIS IS A DUDU WORLD

I have tried to do this already; but it is rather unsatisfying and I

INSECTS AS A NATURAL RESOURCE

natural resource. The forests of our lowland humid tropical areas
have bequelhed to us a rich insect fauna almost unrivalled anywhere

And r he wild white lilies
Are shouting silently

And as the fragrance
Of the ripe wild berries
Hooks Ihe Insects and little birds.
As the fishermen hook Ihe fish
And pull them up mercilessly.

T From°th"e g surrounding villages.

And from across many streams,
They come from beyond Ihe hills

They surround you
And bile off their ears
Like Jackals. "

•lone, besides more years spent on the study of wasps, bees, but¬
terflies. and other insects. His study of the dung beetles shows both
his empathy with insects as well as his understanding of their role In
the environment:*

"There is. to my knowledge, only one other example of in¬
gatherers of honey and the buriers of well-SIled game-bags.

And. strange to say, these Insects vying In maternal
solicitude with the flower-despoiling tribe of Bees are none
other than the Dung-beetles, the dealers In ordure, the
scavengers of the cattle-fouled meadows. We must pass from
the scented blossoms of our flower-beds to the Mule-dung of
our high-roads to find a second Instance of devoted mothers
and lofty Instincts. Nature abounds In these antitheses. What

of filth, she creates the flower, from a little manure, she ex¬
tracts the thrice-blessed grain of wheat.

Notwithstanding their disgusting occupation, the Dung-

ts generally Imposing - their severe and Immaculately glossy
attire, their portly bodies, thickset and compact, the quaint

cut an excellent figure In the collector's boxes, especially
when lo our home species, oftenest of an ebon black, we add
a few tropical varieties, a-glitter with gleams of gold and
flashes of burnished copper."

African countries to conserve our r
plant life. The most sustained effor
establish national parks, which are us
>n dry savannah,

itional heritage of animal si

America to purchasing large
Electing butterflies to gloat over,
million a year for the export of
Leone is establishing a cottage in-

INSECTS AS A COMPETITOR

(Whatever the word i
Saliva squirted from
And froth flew

Landed

The

tips or growing points

and among the green berries or dower buds, jeopardising the full
development and fruiting of the plant. Chemical control can give
some relief; but very good control of the peat has been achieved by
the introduction of its insect parasites from Uganda in 1939.

The third pest, whose long-

tropical Africa, is the cotton leafhopper. Empoasca facialis . which
Africa, especially under irrigation conditions, until the early I940's

It Is

young leaves of the cotton plant, from which it then proceeds to suck
plant juices. The result of Infestation is "hopper-burn", characterized
in the early stages by the edges of the affected leaves changing colour
to yellow or red in successive zones, which seems to be the result of
the interruption of translocation of plant sap through the plant
vehicular vessels, the phloem. These initial symptoms are succeeded
by a curling of the leaves, which may eventually dry up or be shed
If the infestation occurs on young plants, their growth may be en¬
tirely arrested; if it occurs on older plants, their crop will be shed or
they may be capable of producing only immature lint; in any case,
losses due to leafhopper attack are usually serious in the cotton
growing areas of the dry savannah. The early discovery that hairy
cotton plants seem to be resistant to leaf-hopper attack was intensely
exploited in breeding programmes utilising a diverse genetic source
of the cotton plant; and in the 1940's it became apparent that long
hairs on the leaves were directly responsible for conferring on cotton
plants resistance towards leaf-hopper attack, ft turned out that the
resistance was due to the hairs preventing females from laying eggs
on the leaf surface; the hairs did not necessarily prevent them from

outstanding contribution in the control of the cotton leaf-hopper to
the level when it can only be regarded as a very minor pest.

The control of the three pests already mentioned, over a period of
approximately ISO years of pest management is a miserable return
whichever way we consider the matter. At the present rate of the
solution of pest problems in tropical Africa, it will take us another
200 centuries to solve the remaining major peats. Obviously, we must
adopt other strategies to quicken the pace of advance in pest
management practices

"And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature
after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the
earth, after hts kind: and It was so.

12

PESTICIDE FAMINE

much use for agriculture. Even so. Africa coruins more land of high
carrying capacity and great biological potential than any other con¬
tinent. when one considers the effective combination of adequate
rainfall and effective solar radiation over most of its surface*. Africa
is well supplied with lakes, rivers, and swamps for storing and
distributing its high rainfall; indeed. Africa's inland waters total
about 1.8 million square miles, or approximately 34* of the total
world resources of inland waters. On the other hand, the poverty of
tropical Africa is glaring. It is very largely explained by the un¬
derdeveloped sute of its abundant natural potentialities. The amount
of agricultural crops produced by each person per acre, for InsUnce.
is very small; this small capiu production has in fact not risen in

It is recognised that agricultural practices in this continent must
change - better husbandry methods, better marketing and
distribution, better incentives to the fanner, better integration of

ter agricultural inputs.

Parallel to the recent acute oil crisis, there is also looming a fer-

13

tilizer famine and a pesticide famine. In i960's (he annual world total
fertilizer consumption was about 35-40 million metric tons. Of this
total. Africa only consumed 1.0—1.5 %, whereas Japan consumed
5.0%. North America consumed 25% and Western Europe 30%.
These proportions have not changed substantially in this decade.
With an expected world shortage of mineral or synthetic fertilizers in
the next few years, and with little industrial capacity to produce its
own fertilizer requirements. Africa is going to be hard hit by this fer¬
tilizer famine. This forecast is underlined by the recent an¬
nouncement (August 1974) by the Prime Minister of Tanzania to the
elTect that all fertilizer imports were immediately banned and that
farmers were asked to use farm manure instead.

A similar situation is likely to arise in the case of pesticide supply.
Nearly all pesticide production is carried out in industrialized coun¬
tries of North America, Europe and Japan - although formulation of
the technical material into a commercial product is frequently done
in other countries, including tropical Africa. It happens also that
most of pesticide use is confined to North America. Europe and
Japan. In 1970. the U.S.A. consumed 45% of all world pesticide
production. Western Europe 23 %. Eastern Europe 13%, and Japan
8%. The developing countries put together only consumed 7% of
world pesticide production. In a scramble for pesticides for the pur-

it is likely that the pesticides manufacuturers in the industrialized
nations are not likely to export much of their product to developing
countries since the domestic demand itself will' be at a peak.

- where pesticides have made a notable contribution since the
discovery of DDT more than 30 years ago - will find pesticide
famine an extremely urgent matter. We can expect that in tropical
Africa, with its rich pestiferous fauna, pesticides will continue to be
vital as a pest management tool. It is certainly a fire-brigade tool that
has given excellent dividends in the control of insect disease carriers.

On the long-term, pesticides have caused much anxiety, for several
reasons. Although DDT, because of the simplicity of its manufacture,
its wide spectrum of activity, its prolonged residual action, and its
relative safety to humans and livestock, has resulted in its wide use in
the control of Malaria, other insect-borne diseases, and pests of cot¬
ton, tobacco, fruit trees, and horticultural products, its abundant use
and its persistancc has created its own crop of problems. By 1970. 2
million metric tons of DDT had been actually applied in the field; it is
estimated that up to 25 %- of this total still remains in circulation in

TOWARDS A NEW ORDER

BEFORE the discovery of DDT and the subsequent avalanche of
advances in the characterisation of other new pesticides since the
1940‘s, pest control was largely a matter of using the hammer-and-
tong technique. You ate the pest (locusts and termites are dramatic

15

REFERENCES

1. Frank L. Lambrecht. 1964. Aspects of evolution and ecology of
tsetse flies and trypanosomiasis in prehistoric African en¬
vironment. J. Afr. Hist 5:1 - 24.

2. John J. McKclvcy. Jr. 1973. Man Against Tsetse. Cornell
University Press, Ithaca.

3. Okot p'Bitek. 1966. Song of Lawino, East A African Publishing
House, Nairobi.

4. Fabre, J. Henri. 1918. The Sacred Beetle and Others. Hodder and
Stoughton. London.

5. Maeterlinck. Maurice. 1927. The Life of the White Ant. George
Allen and Unwin Ltd., London.

6. Newman, L.H. and Savonius. M. 1967. Create a Butterfly Car¬
den. John Baker, London.

7 Owen, D.F. 1971. Tropical Butterflies. Clarendon Press. Oxford.

8. Oyenuga. V.A. 1968. Industrial versus agricultural development
in Africa. /«.- The Challenge of Development, East African
Publishing House, Nairobi.

9. National Academy of Sciences. 1972. Degradation of Synthetic
Organic Molecules in the Biosphere. Washington, D.C..