Namibia calls for regionally coordinated approach to fight army worms

Namibia's agriculture minister John Mutorwa said Thursday that there is need for a regionally coordinated approach to curb the outbreak of army worms.

There are currently outbreaks of army worm, bollworm and stalk borers in the entire northern region of Namibia as well as in Kavango and the Zambezi regions.

The first outbreaks were reported at one of Namibia's biggest green schemes, Etunda in Omusati region last year in July.

It spread to another green scheme project, Musese, in the Kavango and then the Zambezi region.

The two green schemes are run by the Agricultural Business Development Agency (AgriBusDev) and supply green produce that is used mostly for drought relief.

Julia Nambili, a chief agronomist with AgriBusDev, told the media late Jan. 2017 that the outbreaks could lose 23 million Namibia dollars (1.7 million U.S. dollars) this season.

Addressing his staff to mark the new year in Windhoek, Mutorwa said the current outbreak is most serious compared to the one the country experienced in 2014.

Mutorwa also said Namibia cannot now deal with the problem alone and needs other affected countries in the region to coordinate the approach.

"It is important that the SADC voice should be heard since the worms have invaded a number of other countries," he said, hinting that Namibia could declare an emergency if the problem persists.

source: Xinhua