AFRICA has been invaded on quiet wings. First they landed by ship in the west. Then they spread across the continent, wreaking havoc as they went. Now, two years later, the invaders are worrying officials in almost every sub-Saharan country. It’s not the French, British or even the Chinese. This time it’s a simple American moth, the voracious fall armyworm, that has marched through Africa’s fields and is threatening to cause a food crisis.
When just a hungry caterpillar, the fall armyworm will happily munch on more than 80 plant species. But its favourite is maize—the staple for more than 200m sub-Saharan Africans. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that sub-Saharan Africa has about 35m hectares of maize grown by smallholders, and that almost all of it is now infested or at risk of infestation.
If the pest is not controlled, it could gobble up as much as 20% of the region’s total maize...Continue reading
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