Nuclear Technique Helps Dominican Republic Eradicate Insect Pest

10 Jul (NucNet): The Dominican Republic has eradicated a major agricultural pest, the Mediterranean fruit fly, by using a nuclear technique with the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the IAEA said on 7 July 2017. The Caribbean country officially declared in a ceremony in the capital Santo Domingo that it is free of the insect, two years after an outbreak led to considerable damage to its agricultural industry. The IAEA, with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, provided assistance to the Dominican Republic to suppress the agricultural pest using the sterile insect technique (SIT). This form of insect birth control uses radiation to sterilise a large number of male insects, which are then released to mate with wild females. Since these do not produce any offspring, the insect population is suppressed, or eliminated, over time. The outbreak of the Mediterranean fruit fly in the Dominican Republic was first reported in March 2015 near the popular tourist city of Punta Cana, and rapidly spread to a 2,000 sq km area in the east of the country. An import ban was placed on several agricultural products, resulting in an estimated loss of $42m (€36m) in fruit and vegetable exports in 2015 alone. As a result of the eradication efforts, the ban has since been gradually lifted, the IAEA said. The declaration that the fruit fly has been eradicated represents “a remarkable achievement” for the Dominican Republic, the IAEA and its partners,” said IAEA director-general Yukiya Amano. For more on the sterile insect technique, or SIT, see the IAEA website: http://bit.ly/2t4Xdbd