Fall Army Worm Hits Field Farmers Hard
Lesedi Mkhutshwa | Monday March 2, 2020 16:08
She revealed this on Friday at a press conference and media tour, near Matshelagabedi village.
Pelokgale revealed that almost every farmer across the country, who planted maize in the 2019-2020 ploughing season, is affected by FAW.
She said for this ploughing season they have received reports of FAW attacks in all the districts, except for Kgalagadi and Gantsi areas.
Pelokgale added that the Southern and South-east Districts were the most affected with one of the farms in the areas having recorded a percentage damage ranging from 70% upwards.
However, she said they do not have the figures as it was still early in the season and they were yet to harvest, so as to indicate the yield loss.
Pelokgale said that FAW increases yearly and when it started in 2017 the situation was not as bad as compared to now.
“The reason why the situation is increasing is because most farmers when they see the minimal damage of FAW they tend to ignore not knowing that this thing is multiplying.”
She said if the FAW issue is not tackled now, they are going to have a serious problem in the 2020-2021 ploughing season.
Pelokgale said since 2017 they have been having FAW sightings and in the 2016-2017 ploughing season they had an area of 14,507.53 hectares, which was planted for cereal productions of which 27,000 hectares was affected by the pest.
She added that in 2017-2018 season they had an area of 96,222.99 hectares, which was planted, and 1,060 hectares were affected by FAW.
Pelokgale pointed out that in the 2018-2019 ploughing season they had an area of 93,162.17 hectares and 16,000 hectares were affected by FAW.
She said FAW mostly affects cereal crops such as maize, millet and sorghum, but it seems to affect maize more than other grasslands.
As a response, Pelokgale said government is trying to alert farmers and educate them on how to identify and control FAW.
She said Botswana has been fortunate to receive funds from Japan and the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation to a tune of P5m and P2m respectively for the purpose of controlling and monitoring FAW. When speaking about the distinguished features of a FAW, she said the worm has a ‘Y’ on the head or a cluster of four bumps on the dorsal side of the last abdominal segment.
On the background of the FAW, Pelokgale said that FAW, also known as Spodoptera Frugiperda scientifically, was first detected in United States of America and in East Africa in 2016. She said that the pest was later detected in Botswana in 2017 in Kweneng District.
For his part Willis Ochilo, a scientist from Centre of Agriculture and Bioscience International in Nairobi, Kenya, said from a continental point of view all countries in Africa are more or less experiencing the same challenges in terms of management of FAW.
He said the pest has many hosts and some studies have shown that over 300 crops can be the host for that particular pest.
Ochilo said a single moth of FAW can produce over 2,000 eggs and if not controlled it has the capacity to reduce yield by more than 73%.
He said FAW can be controlled by crop rotation and practising field sanitation by making sure that crop fields are weed-free as weeds may act as alternative hosts to the pest.
Ochilo said there are biological control agents, which research has shown that they are active in control, such as pheromones.
He explained that pheromones can be used to achieve aims of helping in monitoring and mass trapping of the male moth, which is likely to reduce mating between the female and male FAW.
He also said that FAW can affect farmers economically because if for example a farmer gets 100 bags of yield from planting maize and if affected by FAW, the farmer would have made a loss from their produce.
He added that the shift would have a significant impact in terms of the economy of the smallholder farmer.
During the tour in one of the affected farms, owner Godson Tafa told The Monitor that FAW affected three hectares of his farm.
He said if it were not for FAW his farm could be able to produce over 300 bags of 50kg maize of which he could have gained over P100, 000 from.
He said that they used over P60, 000 to plough and due to the FAW they are going to make a loss.