Tanzania faces banana disease threat

Dar es Salaam. A new disease poses a genuine threat to banana farmers in Tanzania, experts have warned. 

Dr Victor Manyong, Eastern Africa director of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), says the disease has just been discovered in neighbouring Mozambique.

He says his institute is working with Mozambican authorities to contain it before it spreads to neighbouring countries, including Tanzania.

"Another threat is 'fall army worm' which affects maize crops and climate change has always been a challenge," he has said at an event in Dar es Salaam to mark the institute’s 50th anniversary.