Chinese experts will support Cabo Verde in fighting the spread of an insect which is threatening agriculture in the archipelago, according to the Government.
Secretary of State for Agrarian Economy Miguel Moura announced the arrival “soon” of experts from China to support Cape Verde in mitigating the effects of the spread of centipedes from the island of Santo Antão to other islands.
Because of the insect, brought into Santo Antão in the early 1970s from Europe, the island has been, since 1984, subject to measures of quarantine, prohibiting the flow of products to the other agricultural islands in the archipelago.
“To lift the embargo we have to have a study, very carefully, that we are not going to contaminate the entire national agriculture. (…) We have to have a study that recommends such a decision”, Moura said, quoted by the local press.
Since 2010 the island has been free to export its products to the islands of Sal, São Vicente and Boa Vista, which are not agricultural producers.
“It is science that supports the political decision and as long as science does not give us this guarantee that the other islands will not be contaminated, we cannot do that. It is a matter of political responsibility” Cabo Verde´s secretary of State stressed.
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