Posted on August, 10, 2018 at 08:43 am
By Henok Tibebu
Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Resources said manual prevention system would remain as better option to address the fall army incident that has occurred in eight states at the current season of agriculture.
Alemayehu Brihanu, Public Relations Director at the Ministry, said the incident was observed in Oromia, Amhara, Tigray, Gambela, Benishangul Gumuz, Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples, Ethio-Somali and Harari states, affecting Maze and Sorghum crops of Autumn and summer seasons. He noted that the Ministry is exerting level best efforts to prevent the damage by raising awareness and mobilizing the farmers.
According to him, the country has been able to minimize production loss by five percent implementing the manual method, tracking and killing the worm before it spreads in fields, over the past season of production.
He told The Ethiopian Herald that the method was effective when compared to other African countries that have been affected by the invasive worm and have largely deployed chemical treatment.
The Director also emphasized that using chemical treatment would be secondary option.
Meanwhile, gross food production and food security have been issues of concern that the Nation is still dealing with. He said Ethiopia has been successful in terms of the gross production but the food security is an issue that involve several sectors which need to intensify efforts on nutrition.
He said the country has freed itself from food donations or aids but there is much to do in ensuring food security. The government has been working based on directions set to ensure food security.
Therefore 6,617,392 hectares of land is so far been under production and 376 million quintals has been harvested on the first round irrigation development.
In cases of supply of improved seeds 591,958.11 quintals have been distributed for the farmers and the performance reached 78.12 percent, said Alemayehu.
According to Alemayehu the current agricultural season is expected to be more productive than the past three years as conducive and abundant rainfall has been observed in the past few months of the season.
The Nation has planned to produce over 375 million quintals of crop in the current agricultural season and 3.05 quintals of best seed including 13 million quintals of fertilizer is being supplied for the farmers though there are inconveniences in the distribution process.
Source : The Ethiopian Herald