‘Armyworms Won’t Get Us This Year’ – Afriyie Akoto

Minister of Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, has predicted that the destruction to maize crops by fall armyworms in 2018 will be less than 1,000 metric tonnes.

According to him, the fall armyworms “have come to stay” but the ministry has developed robust measures to ensure that the impact is mitigated. The pests caused havoc to several farms across different regions but the minister has promised that they will be kept under control.

“This year I can assure you [that] they (fall armyworms) will not even get 1,000 metric tonnes, they won’t because we have been able to sensitise the farmers, the general public, formed spraying gangs, trained our own staff, gone on community radio and so on,” he told the media on Tuesday, 26 June 2018.

Dr Afriyie Akoto revealed that the taskforce has not been disbanded, adding that it is working very hard to ensure that last year’s situation, which resulted in the destruction of 14,000 metric tonnes of maize, is not repeated.

The fall armyworm invasion, he said, is one of the challenges confronting the implementation of government’s Planting for Food & Jobs (PFJ) programme adopted by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government.

Source: ClassFMonline