Tanga — AT first, stakeholders were worried that the crop they had been assured was drought resistant, defying all types of weather, was after all prone to disease. The worry surfaced all along, slightly over half a century ago, when word spread that a strange disease was threatening to wipe out a plant that no disease whatsoever, would devour.
The crop disease was first detected in Korogwe District in 1951 by the Mlingano Agricultural Research Institute (ARI) - one of the renowned centres in Africa. In the course of time, the disease spread in all sisal plantations in the country, though not at an alarming pace.
...