The latter includes a report on the international conference on ‘Fall Armyworm Research-For-Development: Status and Priorities for Africa’, organised jointly by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), the African Union Commission (AUC), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (CABI), the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) and the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

The newsletter reports on the first formal meeting of the newly established Fall Armyworm (FAW) Research-For-Development (R4D) International Consortium at the conference, one of a number of responses to the rapid spread of FAW (Spodoptera frugiperda ) which is seen as a real threat to global food security.

It is a pest particularly attracted to maize, one of Africa’s key food crops, with estimates of the yield reductions across Africa running into millions of tonnes and very considerable costs. It was first detected in Africa in 2016 and has now spread to all sub-Saharan countries, with recent discoveries made in Yemen and India. The scale of the problem can be seen in a 2018 report from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which estimates that 45% of losses in the 2017-2018 maize harvest (amounting to 0.9 million tonnes) were due to FAW attacks

 “The R4D Consortium, coordinated by CIMMYT and IITA, serves as a science-based platform for sustained collaboration, adaptation and learning for effective FAW management,” reports the newsletter. “The Consortium presently includes more than 40 institutions worldwide, and aims to explore ways to synergistically work on short-, medium- and long-term solutions to tackle the challenge of FAW in Africa, and other parts of the world where the pest is prevalent or may invade.”

Reporting on the highlights of the three-day conference, the newsletter reports: “Because no one solution can fit all farmers and socioeconomic contexts, advice must include use of environmentally safer pesticides, low-cost agronomic practices and landscape management and fall armyworm-resistant varieties, among other integrated pest management tools.

“Enhanced cooperation between countries to access new technologies and manage the transboundary pest is seen as a priority. Consortium experts also urge an integrated pest management approach, initiated based on farmers’ needs.

“Controlling the fall armyworm in the long run will require important investments into research-for-development for generating and sharing knowledge and addressing technical gaps with farmers.”

For more information:

• Download the ANEPPNEL newsletter here
• Visit the FAO’s fall armyworm portal here