Race to contain destructive march of armyworm as pest spreads to India
Caterpillar has already migrated from the Americas to Africa, where it devastated billions of dollars worth of maize crops
A crop-chomping caterpillar that has devastated food stocks across Africa has now arrived in southern India, and scientists warn the insect could spread throughout Asia to become a major threat to global food security.
The voracious fall armyworm, which was first spotted on the African continent two years ago and has since cost billions of dollars in crop losses, is best known for gnawing on maize but eats an additional 186 plant species, including sorghum and soybeans.
A pest alert by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (Icar) reports that Spodoptera frugiperda was identified on 70 per cent of the maize crops examined in Chikkaballapur, Karnataka state, where larvae matched fall armyworm samples from Canada and Costa Rica.
Scientists from the Oxfordshire-based Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International (Cabi), which developed an action plan to combat the caterpillar’s spread in Africa, now fear that the food security of millions of people across Asia could be at risk if the armyworms are not contained. India produces more than 20 million tonnes of maize a year across the subcontinent, enabling the pest to spread rapidly, Cabi warned.
“A fast response is important as this pest spreads quickly,” said Dr Gopi Ramasamy, Cabi’s country director for India. “It’s likely fall armyworm arrived in India from Africa through human-aided transport, although natural migration is also a possibility since it’s able to fly hundreds of kilometres in one night on prevailing winds.”
