CQUniversity entomology postgraduate student Madaline Healey has showcased how her work with Lao farmers is helping to improve pest management in one of the world’s least developed countries.
After beginning her PhD, Ms Healey’s supervisor encouraged her to attend the Crawford Fund conference in 2012. It was a turning point in her life – she made contacts who later offered her a grant to work in Laos as an Australian Volunteer for International Development (AVID).
Three years on and the 2016 Crawford Fund Conference last week heard Ms Healey detailing the impressive progress made in improving vegetable crop yields for Lao famers – just one of many insect management activities in her remarkably busy schedule.
“Agriculture employs over 70pc of the workforce in Laos, but it’s routine for them to suffer 20-50pc loss of vegetable yield due to pests and diseases,” Ms Healey said.
“This is a major challenge for a country that is trying to grow its economy and build the livelihoods of its small holder farmers, through exports to other ASEAN countries, and needs to comply with World Trade Organisation phytosanitary requirements.
“So we’ve been working with local farmers and provincial field officers to train them in integrated pest and disease management practices, so that they can identify both pests and beneficial insects and improve their control strategies within the context of Lao farming practices.”
Ms Healey and her AVID and Crawford Fund colleagues have been working in Savannakhet Province, where they have implemented improved pest diagnostic and control strategies on a number of key farms, resulting in reduced crop loss and increased yields.
“Food is just so important and sometimes in Australia we don’t appreciate that – it’s really satisfying to work with people in Laos who really depend on food to economically stimulate their community.”
Ms Healey's early success in driving change in Laos subsequently led to a position on a Commonwealth-funded Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) project at the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), investigating bio-control agents for galling insect pests in eucalypt forestry operations in the Mekong region of South East Asia.
“Eucalypts are grown world-wide but with our native trees we’ve also exported a eucalyptus gall wasp, which is now causing problems for small holders in Asia, who keep plots for harvest after about five years,” she said.
“The problem is that the wasps lay their eggs in the leaves and stems, which turn into galls, causing stunting and distortion, reducing tree growth and production.
“Through the ACIAR project, we’ve been able to identify an Australian parasitoid which can act as a biological control agent for the wasp, and we’re also looking at another parasitoid which we hope will complement that approach.”
It’s been a winding road for Ms Healey – hailing from Charlton in Victoria, she undertook her undergraduate studies in agricultural science at the University of Melbourne, before joining Queensland’s Department of Agriculture as a field officer for the Lockyer Valley’s vegetable industry – a move which opened the way to undertaking her PhD with CQUniversity and the journey that followed.
Her post-graduate research with CQUniversity is focused on population dynamics of thrips in vegetable crops, with her work co-supervised by QDAF staff as part of a partnership that brings together the resources and expertise of the two organisations to support research that benefits Queensland vegetable growers.
“Although they are commonly seen as pests, there are many species of thrips and only a few are harmful to crop production,” she said. “However, due to their size, it is very difficult for farmers to tell the difference between the different species of thrips, and upon spotting thrips they will apply chemical treatments.
“Often this is not necessary so we’re hoping to help farmers by developing a seasonal calendar that shows the most common thrips found on different vegetable crops at different times of year, detailing which ones are harmful to crops and which are not.”
After completion of her thesis in coming weeks, Ms Healey will continue her work as a researcher at USC on the ACIAR project, while still volunteering her time to the Crawford Fund’s AVID project in Laos.
