Up to 40 percent of crops lost through pests

Ethiopia loses as much as 40 percent of its crop production each year due to pests and weeds, an official from the agriculture ministry told IRIN on Thursday. Alemayehu Woldeamanuel, an expert with the ministry, said many farmers in the country could not afford chemicals to destroy weeds and pests. The scale of production loss comes as agricultural bodies revealed that fertiliser use has plummeted by 17 percent over the last year, also hitting harvests. The National Agricultural Inputs Authority (NAIA) blamed the slump in usage on poor rains during the year and a drop in the price of grain which hit farmers' incomes. Alemayehu, a senior expert in Crop Development and Protection Technology, told IRIN that in a country hit by food shortages, it was vital to tackle the problem of crop loss. But, he said, farmers must be encouraged to use the system. “Our farmers, due to many reasons, don’t use many inputs like pesticides,” he said. “Largely this is because of money because the price is escalating.” But, he said, the ministry had now adopted an integrated pest management (IPM) approach which was more attractive to farmers. Save The Children UK is one organisation which has been teaching farmers in Amhara region how to use natural, cheap pesticides to control pests and improve soil fertility. The scheme, which is funded through the European Union (EU), is expected to be scaled up across the whole country and used by millions of farmers. But Alemayehu said that tackling the scale of loss was extremely difficult. “Even reducing this loss by 10 percent is extremely hard work," he noted. "It is not easy to bring this down.” He said farmers needed to be made aware of the technology that can tackle the pests and weeds.