Fall Armyworm Control plan launched to curb growing spread of invasive pest

Fall Armyworm (FAW), a crop pest native to the Americas, has spread rapidly through Africa, and to the Near East and Asia in the past four years, said the Food and Agriculture Organization on Wednesday.

The UN has launched a new three-year Global Action for Fall Armyworm Control plan to curb the growing spread of the invasive pest which is causing serious damage to food production and affecting millions of farmers across the world.

Fall Armyworm (FAW), a crop pest native to the Americas, has spread rapidly through Africa, and to the Near East and Asia in the past four years, said the Food and Agriculture Organization on Wednesday.

"It threatens the food security of hundreds of millions of people and the livelihoods of smallholder farmers", said FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu, speaking at the launch on the sidelines of the FAO's Council, the Organization's executive body.

"This is a global threat that requires a global perspective," he stressed, urging the FAO member states "to greatly scale up the existing efforts" to prevent the further spread of this harmful pest to new regions.

Mr. Qu said that FAO is seeking to mobilize $500 million over the next three years to control Fall Armyworm. To this end, he proposed the establishment of a Global Action Fund - the first-ever multi-partner trust fund aimed at addressing the threat - and encouraged countries to contribute to this funding mechanism.

The initiative also calls for increased partnerships to complement current FAO mechanisms such as Farmer Field Schools and South-South and Triangular Cooperation, Mr. Qu noted.

In particular, he added, it will feed into FAO's new data-driven Hand-in-Hand initiative to better target interventions.