ABSTRACT

Purple top is a phytosanitary problem affecting potato farmers in Ecuador. Since its emergence, stakeholders implement – with limited success – isolated efforts to reduce the spread of this problem. Hence, this study aimed to derive stakeholders’ enabling responses to manage the spread of emerging plant diseases and pests, and to analyse the spread of purple top in Ecuador together with the responses of the stakeholders. We review 108 articles on human, animal, and plant epidemics to derive enabling responses to manage the spread of emergent diseases and pests. Then, we describe the spread of purple top and stakeholders’ responses using an innovation history analysis approach. Our results show that managing epidemics calls for collaboration and coordination, communication and raising awareness, design and implementation of interventions, funding, supporting regulations and policies, research, and surveillance. We show that the complexity of the diagnosis of causal agent(s) of purple top caused uncertainty among stakeholders. Each actor experienced the purple top’s epidemic differently depending on her or his role. Poor coordination between scientists and other stakeholders, and lack of political lobby hindered the diagnosis and development of management strategies for purple top. A delayed identification, due to the complexity of the causal agent and poor coordination, can further hinder the mobilisation of necessary resources. Our results together indicate that managing epidemics requires more than identifying the causal agent(s) and vectors. We expect that the findings of this study are useful to improve preparedness for other plant disease epidemics affecting food security crops.

摘要

紫顶是影响厄瓜多尔马铃薯种植者的植物检疫问题。自它出现以来，利益相关者实施了——但收效有限——孤立的努力来减少这个问题的蔓延。因此，本研究旨在得出利益相关者对管理新兴植物病虫害传播的支持性反应，并分析紫顶在厄瓜多尔的传播以及利益相关者的反应。我们回顾了 108 篇关于人类、动物和植物流行病的文章，以得出有效的应对措施来管理突发疾病和害虫的传播。然后，我们使用创新历史分析方法描述了紫顶的传播和利益相关者的反应。我们的结果表明，管理流行病需要协作和协调、沟通和提高认识、设计和实施干预措施、资金、支持法规和政策、研究和监督。我们表明，紫顶病原体诊断的复杂性导致了利益相关者之间的不确定性。每个演员根据她或他的角色经历不同的紫顶流行病。科学家和其他利益相关者之间的协调不力以及缺乏政治游说阻碍了紫顶管理策略的诊断和制定。由于致病因素的复杂性和协调不力导致的延迟识别可能会进一步阻碍必要资源的调动。我们的结果共同表明，管理流行病需要的不仅仅是识别病原体和媒介。我们希望这项研究的结果有助于提高对影响粮食安全作物的其他植物病害流行病的防范能力。