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ARC: Fall armyworm invades South Africa, pest here to stay

───   CHRISTAL-LIZE MULLER 07:13 Fri, 21 Feb 2020

ARC: Fall armyworm invades South Africa, pest here to stay | News Article
Fall armyworm PHOTO: Farmer's Weekly

A total of 15 countries in the Southern African Development Community, SADC, recently engaged in a workshop at the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) in Pretoria.


At the workshop, extension officers from these different countries learned more about how the European Union (EU) is funding and combatting the Fall armyworm and the tomato leaf miner pest through the food and agricultural organisation of the United Nations (UN). Dr Roger Price, research team manager at the ARC, confirms there is currently an outbreak of the Fall Armyworm in South Africa. OFM News' Christal-Lize Muller spoke to him...


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He says the worm invaded South Africa for the first time in January 2017, making it a recent pest in the country. The Fall armyworm is settled all over the tropical and eastern parts of Africa.

Price says the pest is in South Africa and is here to stay. It mostly impacts smallholder farmers who are planting non-genetically modified maize. The current local outbreaks are reported in Limpopo and Mpumalanga but it is expected that the outbreak can intensify as the maize season continues.

According to him, commercial maize farmers are reasonably protected because they produce BT-crops and also have access to pesticides and good application equipment while the resource-poor farmers remain a great concern.


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