''Caterpillars not a threat to food''

Apr 06, 2012

Food stocks in the country will not be affected by the ravaging giant looper caterpillars and there is no cause for alarm, agriculture experts have said.

By John Odyek and Gerald Tenywa

Food stocks in the country will not be affected by the ravaging giant looper caterpillars and there is no cause for alarm, agriculture experts have said. 

Tress Bucyanayandi, the agriculture minister, on Tuesday said in two weeks, they expect the caterpillars to have turned into harmless moths (spedoptera exigua) and returned to forests; their preferred habitat. 

He said the onset of the rainy season in April would not be favourable to the moths.

Bucyanayandi said the caterpillars feed on leaves of perennial food crops such as bananas, coffee, cassava but the leaves will regenerate.

Briefing journalists in Kampala on the outbreak of the pests, he added: “The whole country is not affected. They affect gardens on the periphery of forests. They have destroyed only a small acreage of gardens. We have the chemicals to kill them and they have a short life span.” 

According to the minister, the caterpillars turn into pupae within seven to 10 days. 

Within 14 days, the minister said, adult moths emerge from the pupae and lay eggs to repeat the life cycle.

Okaasai Opolot, the director of crop resources at the Ministry of Agriculture, said the caterpillars appear from forests every 10 years and were last seen in 2001.

The ministry advised farmers to report any outbreak of the pest to the nearest extension workers and the district agriculture officer. 

Support can also be got on telephone lines; 0414320801, 0414320115 and 0414320642.

The minister said the caterpillars should be controlled using pyrethroid-based pesticides such as permethrin and cypermethrin. 

He cautioned that organophosphate-based pesticides such as dursban and dimethoate should not be used because they are not effective. 

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});