Government Must Place A Prodigious Premium On The Fight Against Devastating Army Worm Infestation

In the past two months in this cropping season, a devastating organisms called armyworms have wreaked a grand havoc on our maize farms. It has been estimated that farms in the neighbourhood of twelve thousand hectares have been ran aground. The quantum of maize the nation has lost to this worms is envisioned to be over a million bags of maize.

According to unassailable agricultural records of facts, a million bags of maize bears the capacity to feed the three regions of the north for the first half of the year or otherwise rake in over GHC10m.

This only reflects an infinitesimal tip of the loss to mother Ghana. *The dismal phenomenon strongly invites the government to enormously beef up the combat against the exploits and destructions of the army worm invasion-new Ghanaian adversary.*

The government has reportedly sunk a lot of cash into the procurement of insecticides for farmers to flash out the worms, but this has woefully proven not to be enough and lacking. Official mouthpieces from the Ministry of Agriculture has articulated that the prescribed insecticides both liquid and powdered substances have been adequately availed to all satellite metropolitans, municipals and districts bureas of the Ministry. Some of the farmers from some parts of the country are however running a contrary comment to that of government's PR-gurus.

They maintain that they have been consistently turned away whenever they go to request for the insecticides. This may be as a result of one of these; the representatives are crooks, cheats and dacoits whose dishonesty leads them to pilfer the chemicals or the farmers have a deficit of information or the insecticide are just shamefully inadequate. Some farmers in Techiman lamented about how the government only made a provision for 5000 litres when 12000 litres of the insecticide were needed to crush the infestation.

It is a trite knowledge that stoking the offices is not the main hurdle to cross but making same accessible to farmers and getting them apprised of how and the precise spot of the plant to apply the insecticide. Army worms are not visible and noticeable through a mere normal sight but it takes a double checking and combing of the plant to detect their presence.

In reality, the only detective destructive symptom of army worms are perforated holes on the leaves and chopped upper stalk. The farmer, at that helpless and frustrating moment, cannot do much beyond nothing because the destruction has already effected.

The task to battle out the army worm invasion is multifaceted and of byzantine complexity which can be narrowed down to the synergetic collaboration of various government agencies. The Ministry of Information through the Information Service Department should wade in and a launch a rigorous campaign and sensitisation drive. This should be geared towards getting farmers depleted of information abreast with the exactitude of where to access the insecticide and how to use same. It renders the government's rather laudable intervention redundant if insecticides supplied for gratias do not get to the target farmers and even worse of is when they lack the manual.

The government must step up its efforts and fashion out effective measures towards stamping out the invasion to reverse any possibility of food insecurity. Maize constitute the the staple food of the country and any far-reaching destructive menace can slip Ghana, a country which is already operating on the brink of food insecurity, into the abyss of food shortage.

The Kenyans, our African siblings and remote and relatively sophiscated South Americans have suffered food shortage at the hands of the armyworm. Ghana may not be different if we do not pass these worms as innocent minute worms and fight them with all the force we can marshal.

God Bless Our Homeland Ghana!
ABDALLAH, ABDUL MATIN