Government, through the Ministry of Food and Agriculture(MOFA) has released over one thousand litres of chemicals to help fight fall armyworms in the Upper West region.
The Upper West regional crop officer, Hudu Abu disclosed this in an interview with Citi News. He said the chemicals have been dispatched to all eleven districts of the region with more than 50 personnel of MOFA deployed to assist farmers administer the chemicals.
He noted “the government has listened to the cry of farmers in the region by supplying adequate chemicals to combat the fall armyworms. Our men are already in the field supporting the farmers to administer the chemical”.
Over 200 communities are invaded by the fall armyworms in the Upper West region. The Nandom District is the hardest hit with about 4000 farmers in 60 communities already counting their losses.
Gbedi Dima Yakubu, 2015 Upper West regional best farmer in an interview with Citi News at Wallembelle, a farming community in the Sissala East district warned of an eminent serious food security challenge if stringent measures are not put in place to eradicate the fall armyworm menace. He opined that “this is the first time we are facing this fall armyworm.
Already some farms have been destroyed and I fear we may experience hunger next year”.
Checks in some farming communities however indicated that farmers are accessing the spraying chemicals from the district office of MOFA.
Tuko Hamidu, a farmer at Bichemboi said “I got some of the chemical from the district office if not we would have been weeping by now” adding “some farmers who have large farmlands are unable to get the needed quantity to spray their farms and this is posing a serious danger to those of us who have sprayed our farms already”.
He appealed to government to supply more of the chemical to the region.
