With educational actions, communities in Cametá are mobilized to help prevent the Cassava Witch Broom
The municipality received the actions of the I Caravan of Health Education on the Cassava Witch Broom, which took place from August 26 to September 1
On this Monday (1st), in Cametá, in the Integration Region (RI) of the Tocantins River, the I Caravan of Health Education on the Cassava Witch Broom concluded, an educational joint action aimed at training technicians and communities in the municipality, who rely on cassava crops for their livelihood, to prevent the pest.
For a week, more than 50 servers from institutions related to agricultural defense, rural extension, family farming, education, research, and technology were in public spaces, carrying out educational activities. The technicians were divided into twelve teams, which conducted educational actions with farmers, teachers, health agents, and students. Active and innovative methodologies were used. The teams visited schools, boats, ports, fairs, unions, and rural communities, demonstrating how to prevent the disease.
Organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (Mapa), the event was coordinated in Pará by the Federal Superintendence of Agriculture and Livestock in Pará (SFA-PA/MAPA) together with the State Agency for Agricultural Defense of Pará (Adepará).
"The education caravans have generated significant impacts on strengthening health education, as one of the pillars of the Unified System for Agricultural Sanitation Attention - Suasa and Mapa's actions, training and raising awareness among different target audiences through participatory methodologies. A positive impact is the inter-institutional integration involving different public and private institutions, promoting collaboration among them, enhancing the results of educational actions and strengthening the agricultural defense network," emphasized the coordinator of the National Health Education Program in Agricultural Defense (Proesa), Juliana do Amaral Moreira, who led the educational actions in Cametá.
In addition to raising awareness among producers, technicians, community leaders, students, and society in general about the disease and how to adopt measures to prevent the spread of the pest to the cassava-producing regions of Pará, the caravan is a way to articulate inter-institutional efforts to strengthen phytosanitary surveillance in the Northern region states, where cassava cultivation is the basis of the diet for most of the population.
The director of plant defense and inspection at Adepará, Lucionila Pimentel, highlighted the importance of the event for training the servers who work on the front lines of agricultural defense, with the aim of keeping the state free from this pest.
"This is a multidisciplinary, inter-institutional health education event aimed at working with participatory and inclusive methodologies, integrating popular knowledge with technical-scientific knowledge."
The director highlighted the important work that the Agency has been doing in eradicating and preventing the spread of the pest throughout Pará. According to her, in addition to educational actions, the Agency is responsible for monitoring agricultural transit and inspecting planting areas. In 2025, so far, 152 Phytosanitary Education actions and 943 inspections on properties have been carried out. In agricultural transit, 3,811 approaches were made on ships or vehicles, occurring at Inspection Posts and during mobile inspections.
The I Caravan of Health Education on the Cassava Witch Broom had the support of the Municipal Government of Cametá, the Municipal Secretariat of Agriculture, Rural and Economic Development of Cametá (Semadre), Ceplac, IFPA, Faepa, Embrapa, Agriculture Millennium, Pérola de Cametá, and Fábrica da Vida. In addition to technicians from various locations in Pará, representatives from the Agricultural Defense Agencies of the States of Acre, Amazonas, Amapá, Maranhão, Bahia, Espírito Santo, Piauí, Roraima, Rondônia, and São Paulo participated.
"There is a concern about this phytosanitary emergency at the national level, as we are the largest producer in the country. So, at the event, representatives from several states were trained as information multipliers. They acted in the communities during the event and will continue the educational actions in their respective states," emphasized agricultural inspector Thaís Leão, manager of quarantine pests at Adepará.
Cassava - Cassava is essential for the economy and food security of Pará, representing about four million tons annually. The arrival of the pest could cause significant losses in production, affecting small producers and indigenous communities that depend on cassava for subsistence.
Fungus - The Cassava Witch Broom is caused by the fungus Ceratobasidium theobromae. The disease got its name because it causes the shortening of the internodes of the cassava stem, generating a super sprouting of leaves, branches, short and thin that dry up and look like a broom.
The pest was first identified in indigenous villages in Oiapoque, Amapá, and represents a serious threat to cassava cultivation in the Northern region. Since then, strategic measures have been implemented to prevent its spread.
At the national level, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (Mapa) created a prevention and control program to combat the disease and declared a phytosanitary emergency with measures such as quarantine and control of the transit of plant material.
In Pará, Adepará has been constantly monitoring the cultivation areas and published an ordinance prohibiting the entry of plants or plant parts from affected areas. In addition, technicians from Pará's agricultural defense have been trained to identify the pest and apply phytosanitary measures.
In May of this year, the presence of the pest was confirmed in the municipality of Almeirim, in the Bona Village, Indigenous Territory of Tumucumaque, a remote area with difficult access, administratively linked to the State of Amapá, where access is only possible by chartered flights.
