Plant Health Specialist Dr Lisa Myers Morgan is leading the charge locally to ensure that Jamaica’s agriculture sector is protected from the pests and viruses that could wreak havoc on the country’s food supplies.

The Lady of the Angel Preparatory and Immaculate Conception High School graduate has been literally working in the fields for nearly 30 years now.

Myers Morgan shares that she fell in love with the sciences at about age six at a time when she harboured thoughts of becoming a doctor.

What made her so sure that she should pursue the sciences?

“I have a God-given talent at memorising and recording detail and was keen on getting the understanding of how things worked,” she said.

After leaving high school, Myers Morgan enrolled at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, where she graduated in 1991 with a BSc in Biochemistry, with a minor in Botany.

After being selected as a candidate of the UWI Mexico linkages exchange programme, Myers Morgan attended El Instituto de Fitosanidad del Colegio de Postgraduados in Mexico where she was trained in research methodologies at the graduate school of Phytopathology in plant virus research.

“This is how my career as a plant virologist started,” she disclosed. And, it has been an impressive career that has seen her make numerous interventions that have significantly benefitted the local agriculture sector.

An impressive streak of accomplishments has followed her since she completed her Master of Philosophy in Botany and became interested in the epidemiology and management of insect-vectored plant viruses.

Her list of accomplishments over more than two decades working with the Ministry of Agriculture in senior positions, including senior plant protection officer and principal research director, are listed below:

-Investigated virus reservoirs and the epidemiology of virus spread as part of the design and development of a plant health management programme for aphid-vectored viruses.

-Led research that uncovered a weed species that served as a source of the tobacco etch virus and a reproductive host for one of its major aphid vectors in pepper fields. The nature of the spread of the virus in pepper fields was determined. The management of the weed and other identified weed hosts now form part of the integrated pest management programme for the virus in hot pepper production systems.

-Worked extensively during the 1990s on other aphid vectored viruses, including the Citrus Tristeza Virus (CTV) that was devastating citrus crops across the island.

-Led investigations into the management of other types of plant diseases impacting crop production including the rhizome rot disease in ginger and mildews of cucurbits.

When she is not finding solutions for farmers in the field, Dr Myers Morgan is busy in search of knowledge in the classroom. A pace setter, in 2003 she completed the Doctor of Plant Medicine (DPM) programme at the University of Florida. It was the first such programme of its kind in the Western Hemisphere.

On her return to Jamaica, Myers Morgan went back into public service, returning to the Ministry of Agriculture as Chief Plant Protection Officer, a post she held from 1998 to 2007. She currently holds down an acting position at the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) where, among other things, she is leading a team trying to address a mysterious watermelon disorder affecting farmers in St Elizabeth and Manchester.

She sees her work, which includes providing mentorship to young researchers and extension officers as crucial to building the talent pool needed to protect the local food supply for the domestic and export markets.

Dr Myers Morgan said that when farmers succeed, the productivity of communities and their contribution to Gross Domestic Product also increase.