Zambia must intensify its fight against an outbreak of armyworms that is wiping out fields of the staple corn crop, posing a threat to the southern African nation’s food security, Vice-President Inonge Wina said.
“They are posing a big threat to food security in the country,” she said in remarks broadcast on Hot FM radio in Lusaka, the capital. “They have come with such a force of mass destruction that has to be faced head on. We need to put more effort into eradicating the worms.”
The black-striped caterpillars can appear between December and May, as armies of the pest spanning miles and as dense as 1,100 per square metre (10.8 square feet) march through fields, destroying entire crops. Armyworms and other pests had already attacked at least half of the country’s ten provinces by last week, according to the Zambia National Farmers’ Union. Agriculture makes up almost 10% of the economy, and about half of all employed people work on farms, mainly growing corn.
Crop damage in the Copperbelt province has reached particularly alarming levels, the farmers’ group said in a reply to emailed questions. Some districts there have fallen victim, not only to armyworms, but stalk-borers and boll worms, too.
“Some maize fields have actually been completely wiped out,” the ZNFU said in a reply to emailed questions on 30 December. “Urgent and concerted efforts are required to keep the worms' attack under control.”
Zambian president Edgar Lungu last week directed the air force to help airlift pesticides to fight the outbreak, the country’s first major attack since 2012, when armyworms cut the corn harvest by 11%. The nation was the only one in southern Africa to produce a corn surplus last year, as drought shrivelled its neighbours' crops.
Zambia’s corn output last year climbed 9.7%, to 2.87 million metric tonnes.
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