Government says it has procured pesticides following increasing reports that fall army worms and African army worms have already infested crops in some parts of the country.

Ministry of Agriculture Spokesperson Grecian Lungu has told YFM that government is mindful and alert about the development and that the Ministry has engaged farmers in the affected districts.

“We have indeed received some reports about outbreak of the fall army worms, these have hit in almost all the districts across the country but what differs is only the infestation that is there.

“As Ministry what we have been doing is to engage our agriculture sectors in this case the Extension Planning Areas (EPAs) to make sure that they provide relevant information to the farmers on how best they prevent further spread of these fall army worms,” said Lungu.

He added that the farmers can access the pesticides for free in their respective EPAs and Agricultural Development Districts (ADDs).

“We already procured some pesticides for these armyworms so we already delivered about 15, 000 litres pesticides of these armyworms.

“So it means that all the EPAs and ADDs already have these pesticides where farmers can go and get for free and contain this further spread of these fall armyworms so as a Ministry we can simply say that we are almost ready to deal with any outbreak of these armyworms,” said Lungu.

Armyworms usually attack plants mostly in the grass family which include maize, sorghum, millet, rice and pasture and they are destructive and can cause severe crop losses if left uncontrolled.