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2021: African and Asian agriculture
November 25, 2020

In this African and Asian agriculture for 2021 focus, options for
managing fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) in maize
and sorghum are discussed by experts in the ﬁeld Richard E.
Goodman and Joseph E. Huesing
Native to the Americas, the Fall Armyworm (FAW; Spodoptera frugiperda J.E. Smith, 1797) was discovered as anew invasive pest in West Africa during 2016. How and exactly when the pest was introduced is unknown, but
genetic analysis suggests the point of origin was somewhere in the Caribbean. There are at least two genetic
populations of the FAW moth, one consuming maize and sorghum, the other consuming primarily rice. Bothconsume other plants as well. It appears that the strain introduced into Sub-Saharan Africa is the maize strain.
The FAW moths are capable of ﬂying on wind currents as far as 1,500 km and by 2018, FAW had spread across
Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Asia reaching China, Japan and Australia. The FAW is now endemic
across most tropical regions of the world.
Food and feed production is challenging in most developing countries with shrinking resources of water,
farmland and farm workers and with growing urban populations. Farm production losses are growing due to
new invasive insect pests, diseases and weeds. Some fungal diseases are vectored by insect pests such as FAW
resulting in mycotoxin contamination that can cause disease in humans and animals. Maize and sorghum are themajor food and feed crops in much of Africa and Asia and the introduction of the FAW will make production
more challenging.

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In the Americas, farmers of all socioeconomic levels have developed effective means of controlling FAW overthe past 100 years. By the 1920s, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) published manuals for farmers
outlining control measures for FAW. During the past 20 years, farmers in the Americas have used agroecologicalapproaches, resistant plant varieties, including genetically modiﬁed (GM) maize and pesticides to reduce losses
from this aggressive pest.
How can FAW be controlled in Africa and Asia? Fortunately, there is a solution based on Good Agricultural
Practices (GAP) coupled with Integrated Pest Management (IPM). Following the discovery of FAW in Africa in
2016, international development organisations such as USAID, CIMMYT, CABI, the FAO, and the private sector,
joined with regional/national governments and partners across Africa and Asia to develop the GAP-IPM
strategy speciﬁcally to combat FAWs based on three major pillars:
Knowledge (FAW biology and mitigation approaches for farmers, extension agents and regulators).
Tools (Conventional and GM FAW resistant seed varieties, safer use of pesticides, and other IPM tools).
Policy (National regulations for varieties, pesticides, food, feed and environmental safety).

Farmers need the knowledge to grow a good maize crop with an understanding of GAP, including the need forgood soil health and fertiliser, management of soil pH and good quality seed. A healthy stand of well-managedmaize is better able to withstand pest attacks. In addition, farmers need to have the knowledge of pest
management principles for insect pests including FAW, diseases and weeds. However, the best-managed crop
can experience intense pest pressure that warrants aggressive management.
Tools include agroecological approaches, laboratory-reared and released parasitic wasps for biocontrol, safer
use pesticides, and conventional or genetically modiﬁed resistant seed all used in an IPM framework. A farmer
might choose one strategy one year and a different strategy the next. The 100 years’ experience in the Americas
with FAW has identiﬁed different approaches that work well in some circumstances that must be modiﬁed insome years.
Host plant resistance (HPR) provides a foundation of IPM for safe and efﬁcient management of FAW. Since theprotection goal of maize farming is a high yield of maize grain, it stands to reason that deploying seed withresistance traits to FAW is key to its control. Seed companies and public sector providers, notably the CIMMYT
and the USDA have been deploying conventionally bred FAW resistant seed since the 1970s to help maintainyields compared to non-resistant seed.

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In 1995, farmers were introduced to a new approach to HPR using GM seed. Scientists developed resistantmaize seed by introducing genes from the pesticidal bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) that are widely used inorganic agriculture. Organic Bt sprays are difﬁcult to use effectively as they have to be applied at a time before
the FAW enters the maize leaf whorl where it is protected from the spray. However, GM maize expresses low
concentrations of one or more Bt proteins throughout the life of the plant, providing near-complete control ofFAW. Caterpillars that consume the green GM plant material are stunted or die and toxicity is limited to thecaterpillar. People and animals can consume these proteins safely. Farmers are not at risk from toxic chemicals
with GM seeds. While farmers pay a bit more for GM seeds, they avoid costs for many pesticides while
protecting their crop from serious yield loss. The GM maize approach has been so successful that over 85% offarmers in the Americas use GM Bt-maize for control of FAW and other lepidopteran pests. This approach isenvironmentally friendly with virtually no negative effects on conservation biocontrol and is among the safest
approaches for smallholder farmers. However, just like the use of antibiotics to control diseases, strategies areneeded to manage resistance effectively.
Conventional and biopesticides are useful for managing many insect pests. However, broad-spectrum
insecticides may kill beneﬁcial insects. Providing safe options for smallholder farmers is difﬁcult because bulk
containers intended for larger-scale commercial applications are not affordable. Yet companies are adapting toprovide farmers with backpack sprayer doses that are affordable. The key to helping smallholder farmers
economically manage their farms is better training in early detection of FAW and proper use of damage
assessment criteria to treat with pesticides only when economically feasible and with the correct product andrate. Training must be provided through extension agents or companies since farmers have limited electronicaccess (the internet, computers) for instruction.
Conservation biocontrol is a fundamental goal of IPM programmes. The idea is to minimise impacts on natural
enemies of pests which can help keep the pest in check much of the time. Minimising the use of broader
spectrum pesticides is a key strategy. Insect parasitoids and predators can also be reared in ‘biofactories’ andhttps://www.openaccessgovernment.org/2021-african-and-asian-agriculture/98500/

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released into ﬁelds using a process called augmentative biocontrol. While such biocontrol has been used tomitigate FAW infestations, it is expensive and complex to implement (de Lourdes Corrêa Figueiredo et al, 2015).

Policies
Many agricultural technologies, including seed, agrochemicals and biocontrol agents are regulated by nationalgovernments. Strictly speaking, the role of the regulator is to assess the safety of these products and not todetermine which products farmers should have access to. Once approved for use, each farmer can assess how
best to use these technologies to ﬁt their needs and income level. Importantly, farmers can only choose
technologies after regulatory approval. What is not helpful is when access to useful and safe technologies isdenied or delayed simply to satisfy the well-intentioned but misguided beliefs of special interest groups. In somecases, trade is disrupted as the technology is denied, based on fears of lack of access to markets. Rational
enabling policies are needed to ensure that the best tools for food production, safety and economic well-beingof smallholder farmers are made available to them.

SAFETY approaches
Seeds including both conventional and GM varieties, as well as biocontrol agents, synthetic and biopesticides
are all regulated materials. All are evaluated for food and feed safety and nutritional equivalence guided byinternational scientiﬁc recommendations. Environmental safety is assured by short-term in-country ﬁeld trials
and by laboratory studies of mammalian and invertebrate organism safety.

Safety approaches for GM crops
GM maize provides the safest and effective means of controlling FAW. Maize transformed with one or moregenes from Bacillus thuringiensis provides resistance to FAW in the Americas, South Africa, Vietnam and thePhilippines. Countries including Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda have a mechanism
to approve test trials to conﬁrm the efﬁcacy and environmental safety of these varieties. These varieties are
already approved for cultivation and use for food and feed in much of the Americas after having undergone
rigorous scientiﬁc safety evaluations that provide data that is transportable.

Food safety
The food and feed safety of GM crops is determined following the science-based CODEX Alimentarius
Commission Guideline published in 2003, comparing the GM and closest non-GM varieties (CODEX 2003). The
evaluation considers possible risks of the introduced proteins for those with existing allergies and celiac
disease. It also evaluates natural allergens, toxins and anti-nutrients compared to non-GM varieties. The
nutritional properties are evaluated relative to conventional varieties in laboratory tests from ﬁeld samples.
Approved GM crops grown in the U.S., Australia, Canada, Argentina and Brazil are evaluated following the sameguidelines. While some countries require assessments far beyond the CODEX guidelines, in the 24 years since
GM food crops have been used globally, no approved GM trait has caused new allergies or toxic responses. The
Allergen Online website maintained at the University of Nebraska is one of the primary tools for the safety
evaluating potential allergenicity and celiac disease (Goodman et al., 2016).

Environmental safety
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Both GM crops and pesticides are evaluated extensively for potential adverse effects on the environment.
While less structured than the food and feed safety assessment, all products are evaluated in an exhaustive risk
assessment for potential effects on aquatic and terrestrial organisms, pollinators and ﬁsh.
Safety approaches for chemical pesticides are important tools used in controlling pests. Safety guidelines have
improved over the past 30 years, and newer, safer pesticides have been developed that are effective incontrolling FAW (Jepson et al., 2020). A number of speciﬁc pesticides have been classiﬁed as safer to use andefﬁcacious for FAW control by smallholder farmers, while some pesticides are deﬁned as high risk for humans,
avian or mammalian species, aquatic invertebrates, ﬁsh or other key species and should be avoided (Jepson etal., 2020).
In summary, clearly, FAW is a challenge for smallholder farmers in Africa and Asia. The tools described here havebeen used effectively in the Americas to limit losses to this pest. Similar approaches should work in countries
newly experiencing FAW, with the adoption of ﬂexible approaches that ﬁt the policies of each country. Costs,
efﬁcacy, safety, and availability are key parameters for success in combating this aggressive pest in all Africanand Asian countries.
ReferencesPrasanna BM, Huesing JE, Eddy R, Peschke VM (eds). 2018. Fall Armyworm in Africa: A Guide for Integrated
Pest Management, First Edition. Mexico, CDMX: CIMMYT.
CODEX Alimentarius Commission. CAC/GL 45-2003 and Appendix IV, 2003.
Goodman RE, Ebisawa M, Ferriera F, et al., 2016. AllergenOnline: A peer-reviewed, curated allergen database toassess novel food proteins for potential cross-reactivity. Mol. Nutr. Food Res. 60:1183-1198. de Lourdes CorrêaFigueiredo M, Ivan Cruz I, da Silva RB, Foster JE. 2015. Biological control with Trichogramma pretiosum
increases organic maize productivity by 19.4%. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 35:1175–1183. DOI 10.1007/s13593-0150312-3.
Harrison RD, Thierfelder C, Baudron F, Chinwada P, Midega C, Schaffner U, van den Berg J. 2019. Agroecological options for fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda JE Smith) management: Providing low-cost,smallholder friendly solutions to an invasive pest. J Environmental Management 243:318-330.
Jepson PC, Murray K, Bach O, Bonilla MA, Neumeister L. 2020. Selection of pesticides to reduce human andenvironmental health risks: a global guideline and minimum pesticides list. Lancet Planet Health 2020; 4: e56–
63. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(19)30266-9.
Nagoshi RN, Dhanani I, Asokan R, Mahadevaswamy HM, Kalleshwaraswamy CM, Sharanabasappa, Meagher RL.
2019. Genetic characterization of fall armyworm infesting South Africa and India indicate recent introduction
from a common source population. PLoS One 12(5):e0217755. Doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.o217755.

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LinkedInPrintContributor ProﬁleRichard Goodman
Research Professor and Consultant
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Food Allergy Research and Resource Program
Phone: +1(402) 417 5549
Email: rgoodman2@unl.edu
Read ProﬁleWebsite: Visit Website

Contributor ProﬁleJoseph Huesing
Consulting Entomologist
Huesing Agricultural and Educational Consulting LLC
Phone: +1 636 236 8745
Email: huesingAgEd@gmail.com
Read ProﬁleEditor's Recommended ArticlesMust Read >> Sustainable agriculture in Japan

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