Global Plant Protection News

Proceedings of the Regional conference on the fall armyworm, Ouagadougou, BF, 10-12 September, 2019.

Under the patronage of HE Mr. Roch Marc Christian Kaboré President of Burkina Faso a regional conference on Fall Armyworm (FAW) was organized in Ouagadougou from 10 to 12 September 2019. The theme of the conference was : « Invasion of Sahel and West Africa by the FAW : status, solutions and available resources to counter the pest ». This conference was organized by the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel and the Ministry in charge of agriculture of Burkina Faso, with the support of FAO, G5 Sahel, UEMOA, the European Union, USAID and ECOWAS.  The conference is a response to the urgency of the need for a coordinated response against the damage of the FAW, a trans boundary insect pest that threatens food and nutrition security in Africa. The conference brought together 346 participants from 21 countries, including the 17 CILSS-UEMOA-ECOWAS countries, and Southern, Central and Eastern Africa.  The participants came from Universities, National and International (IITA, ICIPE, CABI) Agricultural Research Institutions, National Plant Protection Services, Farmers’ Organizations, subregional and regional organizations, Financial and Technical Partners, NGO and the private sector. The program of the conference included key notes sessions, presentations by the participating countries delegates, panels and a round table on resources mobilization strategies.

In West Africa and in the Sahel, the presence of the insect pest was confirmed since 2016/2017. In addition to maize, its main host plant, FAW attacks several other crops. The use of synthetic chemicals remains the first control method. Member states of ECOWAS and CILSS are assisted by several partners in their efforts to control the FAW. These include FAO, Africa Development Bank (AfDB), USAID. etc. Most of the countries have prepared their national action plans and implemented their task forces. However, there is still a need to train the different stakeholders (scientists, extension officers and farmers) in the management of FAW and to develop a capacity for the monitoring of the insect pest. Some research activities are in progress in the West Africa and Sahel sub-region : biology and ecology of FAW, relationships between FAW and its natural enemies, conservation biological control and biopesticides. The conference highlighted the importance of strenghening the collaboration between universities, research centers and extension services to accelerate the transfer of available technologies to farmers. It also insisted on the need to strengthen the capacities of the National Agricultural Research Systems in human, technical and financial resources.

Participants benefited from the experience of other Africa sub-regions including Eastern and Southern Africa. In these sub-regions, chemical control, biological control, IPM and GMO are used to control the  FAW.

At the policy level, the available levers for the management of FAW in the West Africa and Sahel region are the ECOWAS Agricultural Policy (ECOWAP), the UEMOA Agricultural Policy (PAU) and the Food Security Strategic Framework of CILSS.

Regarding resources mobilization, the following suggestions were made : (i) allocate part of the financial resources derived from taxes related to food imports to better structure the production systems of the Member States (ii) mutualise resources and actions of the stakeholders at sub-regional level (iii) provide operational and technical coordination (iv) operationalize the phytosanitary emergency fund.

The participants made some recommendations and delivered a ‘Ouagadougou declaration’ titled “Let us mobilize to develop a coordinated regional response to the massive infestation of FAW, a real threat to food security and food security”.

The closing ceremony of the conference was chaired by HE Mr. Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, President of Burkina Faso and HE Mamadou Issoufou, President of the Republic of Niger.

Dr Souleymane Nacro

Member of the coordination committee of the conference

snacro2006@yahoo.fr

Editors’s note: Several entomologists from Africa will be presenting their FAW research  in symposia at the XIX International Plant Protection Congress, Hyderabad, India, 10-14  November. For details see: http://www.ippc2019.icrisat.org