The Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture, in collaboration with FAO, has conducted a training program on adopting precautionary measures to prevent the Fall Armyworm (FAW) pest introduction to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The training program was carried out in Taif city on Monday, September 9 and lasted for three days. The program aims to educate agricultural experts, and agricultural pests control specialists, and quarantine specialists on the FAW damages, biology and management. It also aims to provide them with information on producing natural enemies and how to use them to combat the FAW and evaluate the effectiveness of natural enemies. Also, it aims to train participants on FAW risk assessment, and highlights FAO efforts to control FAW and explore successful experiences and best practices to combat FAW.
It is worth noting that the FAW caused sever damage to crops, and quickly spread across about 40 countries. Although it prefers maize, it can feed on more than 80 other crops species, including rice, sorghum, millet, sugarcane, vegetable crops and cotton.
FAO has advised farmers on how to prevent and monitor FAW, such as growing maize crops with another crops like cassava or sweet potatoes, avoiding late planting, handpicking and destroying eggs and young caterpillars on maize leaves, and spraying infected maize with botanical pesticides (based on neem or other plants), pour ash, sand, or soil into the whorl of the plant (where FAW feeds); and protecting and encouraging natural biological control agents.
