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Weaver ants to help African farms yield fruit‎

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A research team at Aarhus University, Denmark, is ready to launch a weaver ant project next month in Tanzania and Benin in collaboration with local scientists and farmers to produce organic fruits, with the ants themselves possibly serving as an alternate source of protein for human beings.

File photo provided by Aarhus University shows weaver ants in close-up, in the foliage of tree. [Xinhua]

An arboreal insect known for its lethal biting power, the weaver ant has been recorded to serve as a natural biocontrol agent against agricultural pests, according to ancient Chinese texts dated as early as 304 B.C.. Scientists in Denmark found that the weaver ant may effectively help farmers in Africa in fruit agriculture, after researching on the ant's interaction with pests on mango and cashew-nut trees.

Fruit flies and other pests lay their eggs inside the trees' fruits, making them go rotten. Up to about 80 percent of annual fruit crops harvested in Africa were lost in this way, estimates show.

"To kill the flies with pesticides, you have to make the mango so poisonous that it can kill the maggot," said Mogens Gissel Nielsen, associate professor of Biology at Aarhus University, currently managing the weaver ant project. "But when it is too poisoned for the maggot to eat, it might not be good for us to eat either."

In an interview with Xinhua on Friday, Nielsen described the way the weaver ant attacks fruit flies. Since it takes a fly up to 20 minutes to lay her eggs, "when an ant comes along, the fly will give up, or she will be eaten by the ant."

The weaver ants' killer instinct helps farmers protect their crops, and saves them a lot of pesticides, which can contain chemicals that are harmful to human beings. These chemical-free fruits can fetch good prices on organic foods markets in Europe and the United States.

With a 1.3-million-euro grant from the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), researchers at Aarhus University will launch a program to make the ant project commercially viable for small-scale farmers in Benin and Tanzania.

Starting January, the program will support high-level research on biological pest control measures while training local farmers to use the ants in farming organic mangoes and cashew nuts. Universities and scientists in Africa will also join the program.

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