23 April 2019, Pretoria – With the Fall Army Worm wreaking havoc in South Africa and the rest of Southern Africa, FAO through the country representative Francesco Pierri handed over eleven  tablets and a box Spodoptera Frugiperda (kill strips) to the Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) Early Warning System Division head.

“FAO continues to help member countries equip themselves better for this threat, take action to monitor, and take necessary early action, draw lessons learn from other regions, further strengthening the community of international experts.  FAO assists member stated develop regional and national plans of action, and identify the current knowledge gaps to identify research priorities and work closely with the governments in responding to this pest,” said Pierri in his opening remarks.

The Director of Plant Health at DAFF,Ms. Alice Baxter thanked FAO, particularly the country representative  for this timely intervention which further strengthen the partnership that exists between the two entities in their efforts to end hunger. The gesture will go a long way in better understanding and timely reporting of the FAW detections across the country.
This pest is a menace as it has rapidly spread across Sub-Saharan Africa, infesting tens of millions of hectares of maize, sorghum and millet.

The armyworm flies nearly 1,000 miles in just 30 hours and can easily migrate to neighboring countries.  The female moth can lay up to a total of 1,000 eggs in her lifetime, and in its larvae stage, can cause significant damage to crops if not managed appropriately. It has a taste for maize but also feeds on more than 80 species of plants including rice, sorghum, millet, sugarcane, vegetable crops and cotton.  In sub-Saharan Africa, over 200 million people depend on maize for food security, as it is a staple cereal crop grown by farmers.

The Fall Army Worm (FAW) poses a serious threat to Africa’s food security and although there are solutions, the steps to take are different in each region. So far, the infestation, which started in 2016, has resulted in some containment measures being undertaken, but none is long-term or sustainable. Innovation and technology is believed to be crucial to finding solutions that can help mitigate the risk of decreasing food security in Africa. The value of small innovations means that farmers can start tackling the issue before it’s too late.

The time for eradication has long passed, and scientists, NGOs, and governments are now focused on control. For some, this means chemical pesticides, but these are expensive and many smallholders do not know how to safely apply the chemicals, making them a threat to human and environmental health, including the survival of other insects and their predators.

In order to better control the fall armyworm, maize farmers in Africa, most of whom are smallholders and grow the crop for their own consumption, need to learn how to identify the fall armyworm and its damage, a task that can trip up even trained extension agents.

FAO rolled out a phone app, the Fall Armyworm Monitoring and Early Warning System (FAMEWS), to help farmers and extension agents collect and record information when scouting fields and checking pheromone traps for fall armyworm. The APP is now available for download on Google Playstore and has incorporated Nuru, a program that uses machine-learning to identify fall armyworm damage on maize leaves.