Posted on June, 30, 2023 at 08:44 am
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations on Thursday selected Kenya as a pilot country to lead fall armyworm (FAW) research in the eastern Africa region.
Jingyuan Xia, director of the Plant Production and Protection Division at the FAO, said that Nairobi was selected as a research hub for the voracious pests given its strategic location and abundance of expertise.
"The selection of Kenya is to help combat the effects of fall armyworm to help reduce food insecurity in the region," Xia told journalists in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.
Xia disclosed that Cameron, Burkina Faso, and Egypt have also been chosen to lead armyworm research in central, western, and northern African regions, respectively.
He said that scientists at Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) will spearhead research that will be shared with countries in the East African region to boost armyworm control.
Xia disclosed that the FAO has developed a global action plan for armyworm control to ensure a strong coordinated approach at country, regional and global levels.
The new global initiative, Xia said, aims to take radical and direct measures to strengthen prevention and sustainable pest control capacities at the regional level.
He also said the FAO is exploring the farmer field schools and research approach in the control of fall armyworm as part of the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approach to controlling the pest.
According to Xia, farmer field schools that were launched by the FAO 25 years ago have proven an effective approach to reaching millions of smallholder farmers and successfully engaging them in a learning process resulting in better management of their crops and natural resources.
The fall armyworm was first reported in Uganda in 2016 and later in Kenya, Burundi, Ethiopia, and Rwanda at a time when millions of farmers were yet to recover from a devastating drought.
According to the FAO, the pest has caused an average annual loss of 36 percent in maize production, a staple food for more than 300 million Africans.
For decades, stem borers and striga weed were the main maize pests in Sub-Saharan Africa, a combination known to cause complete maize production failure but a recent invasion by fall armyworm has worsened an already fragile food security situation in the region.
Source: Xinhua