Potato Plague
Prompts Quarantine

A potato plague that has struck farms east of San José has triggered the Ministry of Agriculture to order a quarantine of the affected area and destroy infected seeds.

Potato crops near the Irazú Volcano, in Cartago, have been infected by a nematode worm that could cause serious problems if not contained, according to a statement released by the Ministry.

Called the yellow potato cyst nematode ( Globodera pallida - Stone), the parasitic worm lodges itself in the roots of potatoes and other plants and feeds off the nutrients the host plants, causing them to dry and cease producing. Symptoms include yellowing, wilting, cysts and death, according to the Mediterranean Plant Production Organization (EPPO). The danger is only to plants, not to humans.

The area in which the plague has been found is “relatively small,” according to the Ministry of Agriculture's plant and animal health department.

However, department director Luis Echeverría told the daily La Nación the situation is serious, as it puts the country's plant health status and capacity for export at risk.

He recognized that countries to which Costa Rica currently has free access could close their doors to exports as a preventive measure.

Export of ornamental plants would be the most affected, according to the daily, because the parasite could not only travel in their roots, but sustain itself off them.

To keep the plague from spreading to other parts of the country, the Ministry has initiated a quarantine of the affected area, destruction of infected seeds and prohibition of mobility of machinery between sick farms and healthy ones.

Officials are also working with farmers to help them properly combat the plague and plant only registered seeds.

Up to 80% of potato crops can be lost if allowed to go unchecked and infected seeds continue to be planted, according to an EPPO fact sheet.

The Agricultural Ministry believes the nematode arrived in Costa Rica via a contraband potato seed brought illegally into the country from Panama or Colombia by someone unaware of the damage it could produce.

Costa Rican potato exportation (they are sold to Nicaragua and Panama) has also been suspended, according to La Nación. Costa Rica produces 80,000 tons of potatoes a year on 3,200 hectares.

Costa Rican Minister Praises
Beijing Platform Before U.N.

United Nations (EFE) – Costa Rica's Women's Issues Minister, Georgina Vargas, said the Beijing Platform for Action is “an excellent mechanism” for aiding women's advance in politics.

Vargas spoke yesterday in the 49th period of sessions of the Commission for the Social and Lawful Condition of Women, which reviews the successes achieved by governments in gender-equality policies established in the Beijing World Conference in 1995.

This year, the Platform for Action was adopted in the Chinese capital in the World Conference on Women. It is an “agenda for women's empowerment,” the official U.N. Web site states. It gives countries a framework for policy and actions that can help women overcome gender-based adversity and bias.

“Costa Rica appreciates that the application of the Beijing platform is an excellent mechanism for encouraging compliance with the obligations the Costa Rican state assumed,” Vargas said.

She pointed out that in the past 10 years her country has achieved significant advances, with programs and concrete actions that have had a direct effect on the improvement of society.

However, she admitted there are “real and symbolic limitations,” such as daily practices that contribute to perpetuating discrimination and inequality of women.

The minister highlighted the necessity to promote human rights in every arena.

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