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Potato IPM for Ukraine



TO: SANET community with Ukraine farming connections
SUBJECT: low-cost, low-tech Colorado potato beetle controls

I'm resuming a quest to find technical assistance for gardeners and 
farmers in the Bohodukhiv, Ukraine. CPB damage has been extreme the last 
two seasons, critically reducing the community's basic food source.

Local contacts there say they have no reason to expect technical 
assistance from regional or national ag services. They've asked members 
of a Sisters Cities group in Boyertown, Pa. (without agricultural 
expertise) for help in protecting potatoes this season.

Can anyone suggest ways of delivering the management skills or training 
needed to make a difference? Is there basic potato cultural 
management to protect against CPM written in Ukrainian or Russian? For 
whatever reason, farmers there don't have informational recourse. And 
have no community email that's dependable. 

Bohodukiv is in eastern Ukraine, about 23 km. from Kharkiv, which is 
about 30 km. from the Russian border opposite Belograd. Economic life 
has become quite grim in the past year. People have work, but not 
wages. Food is increasingly precious in what was once a productive 
farming region. Our local group has folks visiting a couple times a 
year, officially and unofficially. Families really appreciated the 
vegetable seeds the Boyertown group sent last year. But the potato is 
the thing. How can we help?  

Any counsel appreciated. Thanks.
-- 
Greg Bowman -- Agro-ecological journalist
504 Main St. , P.O. Box 490
Bally PA 19503 610.845.2436
<gbowman@fast.net>

Communicating for whole farms...for whole communities...for the whole 
world.


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