THE deadly Moko disease, which first started to affect banana farms in St James late last year, has been identified at the Eastern Banana Estate in St Mary.

The estate, in a statement yesterday, said that with the advice of the Research Unit of the Ministry of Agriculture, it has instituted an eradication programme and increased its monitoring and surveillance to prevent the spread of the banana disease.

In the meantime, the management at both the St Mary and Eastern Banana Estates will continue to monitor all their farms to ensure early identification of any further infestation, said the statement.

Dr Marshall Hall, managing director of Jamaica Producers Group, of which the Eastern Banana Estates is a part, said Moko is a common occurrence in a number of banana-exporting countries which have successfully managed the disease.

“The challenges for our estates and the Jamaica banana industry is for everyone to carry out the discipline necessary to contain the disease,” he said.

The government in March announced that 20 acres of banana from five farms in St James would be destroyed as part of the agriculture ministry’s plan to eradicate the disease late last year.

The affected farms were in Montpelier, George’s Valley, Silver Grove, Vaughnsfield and Brown’s Town, all in St James.

Roger Clarke, the agriculture minister, told reporters at a press conference in Kingston in March that every owner, occupier and persons in charge of or manages the land on which Moko disease was detected, would be required to report the find to the ministry. They were also required to carry out all recommendations specified by the authorised officer of the agriculture ministry.

The agriculture ministry, at the Denbigh Agricultural Show last week, implemented safeguard measures to prevent the spread of the Moko disease.

The ministry barred persons attending the show from selling, displaying and otherwise using any parts of plantain or banana plants from St James – the only parish which up to then had been confirmed to have the disease.

The prohibition also applied to heliconia cut flowers, as this plant is also a host of the disease.