Farmers in Embu are worried after the infestation of armyworms leading to increased cost of production and anti anticipated low yields this season.
The army worms have destroyed hundreds of acres of maize crops in the county.
“Army worm infestation in our maize crops signals a low harvest in this region, we had not anticipated for her control in our farming budget since this is new," Saverio Njeru, a maize farmer in from Runyenjes
sub county said.
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Njeru said that pesticides recommended by the
Ministry
of Agriculture are very costly and most farmers cannot afford to buy them.
“This spells a problem for us when coupled with the high cost of seeds and the drought in the lower parts of the county," said
Janeffer
Rwamba, a farmer from Karurumo.
The worms have also infested Gikuuri, Ugweri, Karurumo,
Gichice
and Kanyuabora areas.
However, the county government in conjunction with FAO has employed fifty youth to manually kill the army worms.
The youth will be going
through
farms which are thoroughly infested by the worms collecting and manually killing them as a way of trying to fully eradicate them.
However, this move has not been embraced by farmers arguing that the fifty youth cannot be able to go round all farms.
"That is a stone age strategy, it cannot be easy to fight the armyworms manually without destroying the crops and they cannot make it
to
go through all the infested farms," Duncan Mugo said.
Experts are calling on farmers to contact agricultural extension officers on the type of pesticide they can use to kill the worms.
Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Willy Bett had earlier said that the worms pose a great danger to the country’s food security.
“We cannot run away from the fact that this challenge is almost becoming a national disaster since some parts of the country known for maize production have also been hit with drought,” said Bett in Trans Nzoia recently.
The farmers were speaking at
Ugweri market
on Friday as they waited for Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Willy Bett to address them.
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