Zimbabwe farmers fear return of crop-eating army
FARMERS in Zimbabwe are anxiously watching their crops, fearing the return of a plethora of new pests that recently spread to the southern African nation and devastated harvests this year.
Many cannot afford pesticide or lack the knowledge – to control fall armyworm, tomato leafminer, cotton mealybug and other new pests which have arrived as climate change has created warmer, more conducive conditions.
“We don’t know what is happening,” said Lovemore Muradzikwa, a small-scale maize farmer in the Mafuke area of eastern Zimbabwe, who said he has already seen some of the pests return.
“There are small worms destroying our crops. They are eating even wild plants. We don’t know what they are,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Shifting weather patterns linked to climate change – including longer droughts and more intense rainfall – are making farming more uncertain across much of southern Africa.
And the arrival of new pests – some of them have adapted to the changing conditions – is making life even harder for the region’s embattled farmers.
“A few farmers have done research about these pests and many poor farmers don’t know what to do. We don’t know why we are now experiencing these pests which we never experienced before,” said Muradzikwa.
Fall armyworm destroyed 20% of the country’s maize crop last season, according to government figures, at a time when the country was recovering from devastating drought that had left more than 4 million people dependent on food aid.
The pest is a native of the Americas and was first spotted in Africa last year.
Zimbabwe’s Deputy Agriculture Minister Davis Mharapira said the country is prepared for a possible outbreak this season.
“Our agricultural extension officers are on the ground teaching farmers across the country about fall armyworm. We are advising farmers to report any sightings of fall armyworm as soon as possible,” Mharapira said.
Some farmers “resorted to hand-picking and squashing the worms in an attempt to control them”, or used pesticides. But 60% of farms affected did not take any measures to control them, resulting in extensive damage to crops, the 2017 Rural Livelihoods Assessment Report said.
Many countries in Africa have reported other new crop pests and diseases including banana bunchy top virus in Mozambique, South Africa and Malawi, and maize lethal necrosis in Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda, and elsewhere.
Lawrence Nyagwande, from the NGO, Environment Africa, said climate change in Zimbabwe was creating warmer conditions conducive for new crop pests. – Reuters