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Fall armyworm wiped out 5% of Rwanda’s food production

Thursday May 10 2018
pest

Maize plants infested with the fall armyworm. PHOTO | FILE

By IVAN R. MUGISHA

The fall armyworm destroyed an estimated 5 percent of Rwanda’s food production since its detection in southern district of Nyamagabe in February last year, a phenomenon that caused unsolicited cuts in farmers’ incomes and affected the country’s food security.

But the effects could have been worse, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and animal Resources (MINAGRI), which says that the pest was successfully controlled after it had literally engulfed all farming regions of the country.

“Rwanda managed to mobilize technologies and measures to control the fall armyworm. You have to understand that this is a foreign pest that came from the Americas not so long ago; fighting it was not easy but we managed to do it,” Gerardine Mukeshimana, minister of agriculture said.

Within the first few month of its detection, all districts in the south alerted the ministry that their maize and sorghum was infested with the fall armyworm – and within a couple of months - it was found in almost all 30 districts of the country.

In total, the pest infested over 15,700 hectares of planted maize and sorghum, which is about 25 percent of the total planted maize and sorghum countrywide.

Data

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However, the financial losses that farmers incurred remain unknown, according to the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), which says is still conducting research to come up with data that will provide lasting solutions it can share with government.

“To be honest, we haven’t done a clear assessment of how the worm has indeed affected farmers. We know it is a threat all over the country but we cannot ascertain right now how this has affected a farmer’s yields. We have hired a consultant to carry out an assessment on this and within the next month we shall be able to have the figures,” Jean Claude Rwabulindi Project Coordinator at FAO Rwanda said in an interview.

Rwanda’s seemingly successful story in mitigating the effects of the fall armyworm drew praise from the President of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), Agnes Kabilata, who said that early detection of the pest and application of pesticides in Rwanda had not been shared across the continent.

“The effect it has had across the continent has been devastating but Rwanda did well to detect the fall armyworm very early, which many countries did not do, and to try out several mechanisms to prevent it before t became a catastrophe,” Mrs Kalibata said.

Early this month, FAO introduced a mobile application called the Fall Armyworm Monitoring and Early Warning System, which enables farmers and agriculturalists to map out areas affected by the pest and devise suitable measures against it.

The region

In the region, Uganda was the first to detect the armyworm in 2016, which is now said to cause an annual loss of at least 450,000 metric tonnes of maize, an equivalent of $192m, according to statistics by the Ugandan ministry of agriculture.

Kenya detected the fall armyworm in March 2017 – and is estimated to destroy up to 50 percent of the country’s maize farms, according to US Agency for International Development (USAid).

Fighting the worm across Kenya will cost up to $10 million, according to the National Assembly Committee on Agriculture and Irrigation and the Ministry of Agriculture.

Tanzanian authorities reported that an estimated 11,000 hectares of maize were infected after detecting the armyworm last year.

It is also reported to have ravaged Burundi, although no available data is available from both FAO and Burundian authorities.

Originally from the Americas, the fall armyworm was first officially detected in Nigeria in January 2016 and is now reported to be in 43 African nations.


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