Army worms attack crops in the north

Army worms are destroying rice nurseries and vegetable crops in two chiefdoms in northern Sierra Leone, agricultural officials said on Thursday.

The former chief agriculturalist in charge of crop protection at the Ministry of Agriculture, J.P. Amara, told IRIN that he had first heard reports of the outbreak of the army worms in these two chiefdoms near Lungi International Airport in Port Loko district last Friday.

Amara, now an FAO consultant, said that these reports had been confirmed to him in a meeting today with Paramount Chief Komkanda from the Lungi area. He said the FAO planned to make a rapid assessment of the site when an official request was received from the Ministry of Agriculture.

"If the army worms have not spread too far we can encourage farmers to take appropriate measures such as weeding, the use of chemical spray or the creation of fire belts," Amara said.

He said Sierra Leone was prone to outbreaks of army worms every three to four years and that they tended to occur in areas of regular cultivation of crops.

FAO's Deputy Regional Representative for West Africa, George Mburathi, told IRIN recently that army worms, which reduce harvests by attacking crops before they mature, had also been detected in Ghana's Upper East Region and in Cameroon.