The International Cooperation and Development Fund’s technical mission to Guatemala is utilizing drones and biochips to assist diplomatic allies Guatemala and Belize in combating Fusarium wilt, also known as Panama disease.
Latin America and the Caribbean are the leading exporters of bananas across the 35 nations that grow the fruit globally, and Guatemala and Belize both annually export US$1 billion of bananas, the mission said.
Fusarium oxysporum was first detected in the region after an outbreak in Colombia in 2019 and by 2023 it has spread to Peru and Venezuela, the mission said, adding that further spread of the disease to the north would lead to severe losses for all banana producing nations in Central America.
Photo: CNA
The mission said that it had invited top experts in plant disease and pests, as well as biomedical engineers, to visit Guatemala, Belize and Panama, and hold a seminar in Guatemala City on Tuesday to share Taiwan’s successes in plant disease and pest prevention with local governments and agricultural research facilities.
National Chung Hsing University Department of Mechanical Engineering professor Wang Gou-jen (王國禎), who attended the seminar, said Taiwan had used drones carrying Nvidia artificial intelligence (AI) chips for effective monitoring of crop planting areas.
Image recognition technology and AI analysis enable the drones to detect abnormalities in the area, Wang said, adding that the drones would then upload the information to cloud servers or users’ mobile phones.
The technology allows farmers to take immediate action against pests and plant diseases, Wang said.
National Chung Hsing University Graduate Institute of Biomedical Engineering professor Chang Cheng-chung (張健忠) cited Taiwan’s experience during the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing it to develop biochips that can, with the help of big data, detect pests and pesticide residue within 10 minutes.
Previously, samples would have to be sent to a laboratory, where, using expensive equipment and convoluted processes, examinations were performed to detect whether there were pests or pesticide residue, Chang said, adding that the process was not only laborious, but was also only able to detect one kind of pesticide per examination.
With more pesticides using mixed substances, it would take four to five days to run such tests, Wang said.
Mission representatives said government officials at the seminar had been greatly interested in a rapid screening kit for Fusarium wilt developed by National Taiwan University professor Hung Ting-hsuan (洪挺軒), and models developed by the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology Work Dog Training Center that train dogs to detect the smell of brown root rot.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
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