Mr Ngoda, like many in western Kenya, fared worse than the national average, losing more than half of his maize crop.

Last year, Kenya lost 620,000 acres of maize, more than a fifth of a crop on which the vast majority of the population depends for basic sustenance. On Wycliffe Ngoda’s two-acre maize plantation outside the town of Vihiga in western Kenya, several rows of the crop are withered and pockmarked with holes after coming under attack by the pest. This year’s season, now underway with the onset of the rains, could be even worse.Įvidence of the pest is not hard to find. Several African countries lost as much as half of their maize, the continent’s principal staple, last year.

It is one of the biggest invasions Africa has ever experienced.” “That is the reason why it has spread to more than 38 countries in Africa within a span of two years. Each female moth can lay 1,000 to 1,500 eggs and each moth population can fly almost 100km per night. “It attacks several crop species, not just maize. “It is one of the deadliest crop pests in the world,” said Boddupalli Prasanna, director of the Global Maize Programme at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT). While these four crops are the target of choice for the pest, it also attacks more than 70 other crop and plant species. As a result, crop infestations have been now been reported in nearly 40 African countries and populations of Fall Army Worm have now reached the fringes of the Sahara itself. Proving that theory will be tricky, but what is certain is how quickly the pest has spread: female moths are able to cover distances of more than 60 miles a night. No-one knows for certain how Fall Army Worm, a caterpillar – despite its name – regarded as one of the world’s most invasive crop species, crossed the Atlantic.įirst spotted in 2016 in Nigeria and in the island state of Sao Tome and Principe, scientists say it is likely that the caterpillar reached Africa aboard a passenger aircraft. A crop-destroying caterpillar that has devastated agriculture in Africa is poised to spread into southern Europe for the first time and could even reach Britain, experts are warning.įall Army Worm has cost African economies billions of pounds in crop losses since the American pest was first spotted on the continent two years ago, prompting fears of a humanitarian crisis as millions of farming families face destitution and hunger.

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