Fall Armyworm: New Invasion in Africa, Asia, and Oceania Require Targeted Chemistries and Cultural Practices – Agribusiness Global

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Today were talking about fall armyworm spread and control around the world with Dr. Robert Bertram, Chief Scientist with USAIDs Bureau of Resilience and Food Security, which is charged with advancing nutrition and food security around the world. In that capacity hes working with the FAOs recently established Global Action for Armyworm Control program, for which he serves as Chair of the technical committee.

AgriBusiness Global: Lets start by defining the problem. Fall Armyworm was once relegated to the Americas and has since spread to Asia and Africa. How big is this problem, and what regions are being affected the most?

Dr. Bertram: Thats right. It was a pest in the Americas that we know how to handle. We call it fall armyworm because it migrates long distances. For example, it is endemic in Florida year-round, and it reaches Minnesota by the fall. That fact is the key to the situation in Africa. Once it was introduced there 4-5 years ago, its been able to spread across Africa, up to the Middle East through Egypt, east into South Asia, and eventually into East Asia, and just this year into Australia.

It is a remarkably mobile pest. It can travel up to 700 kilometers, and the generations are rapid. This makes it a new challenge for many parts the world, and in some of those parts of the world, farmers are poorest and least able to adapt to a new pest. And of course its unknown there, so its causing huge losses. Fall armyworm can cause just as much damage, but it affects a larger area because its not a single swarm. Its much more diffuse kind of problem but a very large one that is affecting livelihoods, food security, and food safety and affecting millions of people across Africa and Asia, people who are in many cases the least able to adapt to any additional threat to their food security and wellbeing.

AgriBusiness Global: And this problem is endemic for them now?

Dr. Bertram: Yes, its not going anywhere so were not talking about eradication. The pest is there, and weve been actively partnering with researchers and institutions in both the public and private sectors in the Americas, where the bulk of expertise is on this pest, and also now in the countries where it is endemic.

Our first efforts were about leveraging the knowledge in places like Brazil, the tropics, Florida, and experts from universities and agencies like the USDA and help bring that to their counterparts in sub-Saharan Africa and subsequently in Asia.

Now as time goes on, its more about adapting to the pest now that we know more about it in these new contexts where it is.

AgriBusiness Global: The FAO says Africa is loosing as much as 18 million tonnes of corn annually, accounting for $4.6 billion in economic loss. Do we have any other metrics that can tell us how widespread or pervasive this is?

Dr. Bertram: We can say overall that its taking out about 10% of sub-Saharan Africas maize crops. The valuation of that is variable, and thats about the same as the hit from the locusts. 10% [collectively] might not sound like its a wipeout, but it can be in areas, and thats the problem. If you have a lot of rain, then its not as severe of a pest. If you theres not as much rain, then you can have a very severe outbreak, and one of the challenges we have with it is that it is a very insidious pest. When it shows up, you really have to know what to look for, and then it gets inside the plant in the whorl or in the ear where you cant get at it so you have to be fast on the draw. This is where in many cases access to information, biocontrols, and chemical controls might be lacking. [Crop damage] is certainly in the billions of dollars [in Africa]. I dont think we have estimates yet for Asia, but again its going be very large.

The other thing that is important is that this isnt restricted to just maize. It goes after sorghum, too. There is also a rice biotype of the pest and many of us are fearful that either the current pest could adapt rice in Asia and Africa or the rice biotype could become introduced. That would be a terrible blow because the rice crop is such a staple for so many parts of the world.

AgriBusiness Global: Lets talk about how were working to help control this. The FAO started the Global Action for Armyworm Control program in December 2019. What is that program focused on and hows it going?

Dr. Bertram: It is FAO and this is something that USAID and other counterparts around the world had advocated for the FAO to play a key role as they have with other pests. So the global action is basically trying to equip those countries where this pest is new with the information they need to combat it. I talked earlier about leveraging the knowledge that exists in North and South America, and several years ago we started a Research for Development Alliance, which is a partnership between universities, governments, and the FAO, and that was intended to build the evidence base in Africa and then Asia and the Middle East. And what weve done under the global action is distill the knowledge both from what we know in the Americas and also what were learning overseas. What kinds of varieties are resistant? Transgenic maize is totally resistance. Farmers in South Africa, Vietnam, and Philippines are growing biotech maize and they dont need to spray for the pest.

We information on biological controls and good agricultural practices, so the technical committee that I lead has worked this year to pull this all together and synthesize it in a way thats going to make it accessible to sophisticated partners, and we also want to have that information available to farmers because you need millions of smallholder farmers acting on good information and access to control.

Early warning is not a big deal in this because its endemic. But in the areas where its migratory, then being able to say when it has migrated in is important. So all this knowledge is important to access control methods, including chemistries.

[In terms of chemical controls] we need to think about the policies surrounding access. Some of the new chemistries that are available are safer than some of the older pesticides, especially in the developing countries where pesticides are not well regulated often. People might not have all the knowledge or be able to interpret a label. So our work is giving better options, sooner to equip countries and also the farming communities within them to adapt to this new pests.

AgriBusiness Global: Lets get deeper into some of those recommendations coming out of the technical committee. Youre providing support to national task forces and coming up with specific protocols and IPM strategies: Can you discuss some of the hallmarks of some of those programs, given that some of them are region-specific.

Dr. Bertram: Its fair to say that a lot of this is a work in progress. We have this Research Development Partnership that is going after a range of approaches to agro-ecological management practices that include biological controls, chemical controls using both biopesticides and synthetic pesticides, and better germ plasm. So what were done is aggregated those in a table that is soon to be available and we categorize them in three ways:

Weve also categorized them by safety, efficacy, compatibility with biological control, cost, and access in terms of policy (approved registrations). Some countries have more restrictions than other on the ability to bring a new product to market. Were trying to allow people to benefit from the global knowledge thats there instead of reinventing their own system.

AgriBusiness Global: You touched on this briefly already: How available are control options? Some legacy chemistries might be applicable but some new ones might be more affective. You talked about the fragmentation in regulatory systems. What is the role of private enterprise in helping to make technologies available to combat these emerging pests?

Dr. Bertram: Its very important and we have seen development of new chemistries and approaches, seed treatments, for example, that confer resistance for the first six weeks to two months of the plants life. Thats an extremely critical period to protect the plant from attack. That allows the crop to get off to a good start. Its not necessarily widely available yet as in some places, and because its new and has to go through a regulatory review in some countries [it is harder to access]. In a continent like sub-Saharan Africa, you have a lot of small countries with a lot of hurdles. So some of the work we do at USAID is working with partner countries in regions to try to harmonize systems so that if a sed variety is approved in two countries in East Africa, then the rest of the countries will adopt it, and the same thing can be applied in this space.

There is a virus-based spray out of California that is really exciting, but its expensive and not available everywhere. But these things are far preferable to some of the legacy chemistries. Often these are chemistries that are no longer used in North America, Europe, or Australia, for example. So that combined with misuse or misapplication or lack of personal protective equipment. Everyone knows what PPP is now, but in the plant protection business it has been a household term for a long time, and thats often lacking in the context where we are.

Good agricultural practices, good seed. We are getting non-transgenic based sources of resistance. Theyre not as good as the transgenic resistance that farmers in the Americas use but they help. So there is a range of things that can be done and it requires judgement and the farmer being able to see the problem and use an appropriate approach, and for a number of reasons, farmers choices are limited.

AgriBusiness Global: Are you seeing private enterprises increasing registrations for new products in some of these markets that need them? Are they answering the call?

Dr. Bertram: Yes some of them are. Its a good business practice. They want to grow the business and they want to bring these better products to the farmers. We are also working to try to enhance the regulatory enabling environment so that it will be more cost effective for the private sector to come and invest. And of course they dont just invest in the products, they then invest in the value chain by investing in agro-dealers to make the information and the product available. The industry has responded. There are new products getting used. But getting them to through the last mile to the farmers, like a family in Malawi where a woman is raising five children and has about an acre of land, thats a tough one, and thats where unfortunately people need to fall back on whatever control methods are available.

AgriBusiness Global: Are there a handful of active substances that you with you could make available to regions being affected? You mentioned the biological viral spray and seed treatments:

Dr. Bertram: Yes, and in our work at FAO well be listing the active ingredients. The policy is not to list brand names, but there are safer ingredients that can be used, yes.

AgriBusiness Global: There are a litany of AIs that treat this in the US, are ones that are most applicable to sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia?

Dr. Bertram: Were still compiling the list of specific chemistries, but I can say that there are effective Bacillus Theringiensis, which is a biological pesticide that is commonly used in organic production in the US. There is interest in some of the new biopesticides. The new or modern AIs are in the families of pyrethrins and the like.

AgriBusiness Global: Can you characterize the adoption. Were just getting the guidelines and IPM protocols through the value chain through the agro-dealers and down to the farm level, so whats the response been like and hows it working so far?

Dr. Bertram: We are making progress each year as people become more prepared, more familiar, and have better access to whats happening. One of the challenges is to understand where and how severe these outbreaks are. We do have some work in a digital approach to try to track these outbreaks with colleagues at Pennsylvania State University. That kind of information is very helpful in getting a sense for the extent and the severity of outbreaks. It is variable. We do see as a problem in one location one year and less so in another. So you could say there is a capriciousness about it.

Clearly countries where we have more privates sector activity, such as Kenya, South Africa, Ethiopia is taking it very seriously, you see a better public awareness and uptake of control methods that were proposing. The germplasm piece has a built-in lag of getting access to new seed, except for some of the biotech seed. But even there were working with seven countries in the region with private sector partners that are in the lead to develop resistant varieties, which are by the way also more drought tolerant, which is huge issue in sub-Saharan Africa maize production.

And in Asia generally its a better situation because the national and private sector institutions are stronger and have better established means of getting information out and probably more sophisticated value chains. So you are seeing more rapid adoption in control approaches in places like India, Thailand, Vietnam and countries that are better positioned to adapt to this pest.

AgriBusiness Global: Can you talk a bit about how programs like these are introducing new good agricultural practices and standards for emerging economies. Are programs like these helping to modernize production systems for the slew of pests that are known and unknown that we will need to face in the coming years?

Dr. Bertram: Thats one of the big challenges. We dont want to lurch from pest to pest. We know these kinds of problems exist with insects, diseases and weeds. So we do very much try to work in a way to build systemic capacity while we do this and link it to that broader effort of understanding good agricultural practices, clean seed, better post-harvest storage and a range of things that is going to have a positive effect.

So yes, it has to be that way. We talk about it a lot. Sometimes you have a threat like this and people mobilize, and locusts are a great example. We havent had locust plagues in a long time, partly because the control methods were working so well. This past year, because of the war in Yemen, they werent able to do those early control methods. You want to have something that makes the system more resilient. And that involves the public and private sectors, as well as farmer organizations. Anything you do that succeeds and adds value for people by increasing efficiency, lowering cost, using less active ingredients whatever it might be these things have a positive effect on a system that is then better able to stay connected because its delivering value and getting good information in and its integrating innovation out of R&D. That can come out of the private sector that has a big role here, and out of the public sector, particularly in the area of seed and biological controls.

Another thing that is a challenge here on some of these approaches is that the knowledge content is very demanding. Planting a seed is one thing. Managing pest releases or pheromone traps with the proper timing is a different undertaking. But were continuing to make progress.

AgriBusiness Global: We look forward to talking to you again about the progress youre making.

Dr. Bertram: Thank you

David Frabotta is Editorial Market Development Director for Meister Media Worldwides Global Precision Initiative, editor of AgriBusiness Global, and contributor to CropLife. Contact him to any time to discuss new technologies, adoption, input supply trends, and ag economics in your region at [emailprotected]

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Fall Armyworm: New Invasion in Africa, Asia, and Oceania Require Targeted Chemistries and Cultural Practices - Agribusiness Global