Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister, Joseph Made

By Farai Mabeza

ZIMBABWE is facing rising cases of new crop pests, posing a serious threat to the agriculture sector, a senior government official has said.
Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development permanent secretary, Ringson Chitsiko, told a workshop on the management of the fall armyworm (FAW) that the country was facing outbreaks of new and old crop pests that are threatening agricultural production, food security and nutrition.
“The emerging crop pests reported during the 2016/2017 season include fall armyworm, tomato leaf miners and cotton mealy bug,” Chitsiko said in remarks delivered on his behalf by his ministry’s acting principal director, Joseph Sikosana.
“These emerging crop pests, if not managed, have potentially negative effects on yield, production costs, livelihoods and exports (agriculture trade),” he said.
Crop losses can be 100 percent if these pests are not well managed. Some of these emerging pests have been reported in more than one crop. For example, fall armyworm has been reported in maize and cotton and the cotton mealy bug has been reported in cotton and sesame.
The FAW was reported in all the country’s eight rural provinces.
Chitsiko, however, said the pests were being controlled effectively owing to training and awareness programmes conducted throughout the provinces that provided knowledge of the pest and control methods.
The prevalence of the cases show Zimbabwe’s vulnerability to the new pests. Horticultural crop scientist, Maria Goss, blamed present farming practices for the country’s vulnerability.
“I think it’s the discordant farming patterns and systems currently being practiced, also an over dependence and reliance on synthetic pesticides and a disregard of other methods of integrated pest management in crop protection activities.
“Thus farmers are caught unawares because they have no structures in place to manage common, prevalent pests,” Goss told The Financial Gazette.
Climate variability might also play a role. With the advent of climate change, pest and disease dynamics are changing, she added.
Farmers across the country are finding great difficulties managing the pests.
“How can they manage new emerging pests? There are no systems, checks or balances which can be modified to at least keep threshold levels of these new pests low, while effective methods are being devised,” Goss said.
There are also some crop diseases that have been reported in the region that are not yet reported in the country. These include Maize Lethal Necrosis, which has been reported in Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda; Panama Disease Race 4 was reported in Mozambique and Banana Bunchy Top Virus reported, in Mozambique, South Africa and Malawi.
“Surveillance of and awareness of these crop diseases is also being strengthened,” Chitsiko said.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development says it carries out continual surveillance and operationalization of early warning systems for crop pests such as African armyworm, fruit flies, cereal beetle, armoured cricket, bollworms and stalkborers.
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