FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu: Mobilizing US$500 million to launch a large-scale global initiative to combat the fall armyworm.

Release Date:

2019-12-17

Recently, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) launched a three-year, large-scale global initiative to combat the fall armyworm, aiming to curb the pest’s invasion and spread and prevent severe damage to food production and the livelihoods of millions of farmers worldwide. The event was attended by Cape Verde’s Minister of Agriculture and Environment, Gilberto Silva; the Philippines’ Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, Rodolfo V. Vicerra; the Chief Scientist of the United States Agency for International Development, Robert Bertram; Norway’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to FAO, Aslak Brun; the Secretary of the Secretariat of the International Plant Protection Convention, Xia Jingyuan; as well as representatives from UN agencies, academics, government officials, and experts from around the world.

The fall armyworm is a crop pest originating in the Americas that has rapidly spread to Africa, the Near East, and Asia over the past four years.

At the launch of this global initiative, FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu stated that the fall armyworm poses a threat to food security for hundreds of millions of people and to the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. He emphasized that this is a global challenge that requires a truly global perspective. He urged FAO member countries to intensify their control efforts and take further action to prevent this pest from spreading to new regions.

In his address, Qu Dongyu stated that FAO is seeking to raise US$500 million over the next three years to combat the fall armyworm. To this end, he proposed establishing a Global Action Fund—the first-ever multilateral trust fund dedicated to tackling the fall armyworm—and urged all countries to contribute generously to its financing.

In addition, this initiative calls for strengthening global partnerships to address gaps in FAO’s operational framework, such as establishing farmer field schools, fostering South–South and triangular cooperation, and opening new channels of collaboration. These efforts will be integrated into the FAO’s “Hand-in-Hand” action plan, which is underpinned by the latest data, to provide support to farmers in regions most in need of pest‑management solutions.

Qu Dongyu concluded by emphasizing that FAO, other international organizations, national governments, the private sector, research institutions, the academic community, and civil society must unite closely and work in concert to combat the fall armyworm. In line with the proposed Global Action Plan, FAO remains committed to sharing the knowledge, experience, and lessons learned of stakeholders and partners with farmers worldwide, thereby helping to curb this pest’s threat to global food security.

Global Action Plan:

The Global Action will be implemented between 2020 and 2022. During this period, global resources and expertise will be mobilized to strengthen worldwide capacity for managing the fall armyworm. At the same time, efforts will be made to prevent the widespread use of high-risk pesticides and to provide resources for scientific research and innovation, with the aim of developing effective solutions to address this pest—such as FAO’s mobile application for fall armyworm monitoring and early warning.

This initiative will ultimately contribute to the control of harmful organisms in affected areas and to risk prevention in unaffected regions, thereby preventing their further invasion into new territories, including Europe and the South Pacific.

Deadly pests:

The fall armyworm is a pest that, if not properly managed and controlled, can infest more than 80 crop species, resulting in substantial yield losses in maize, rice, sorghum, millet, and other crops.

According to estimates for 2018, this pest alone causes annual losses of up to 17.7 million tons of maize in Africa. The damaged maize could have fed hundreds of thousands of people, resulting in economic losses as high as US$4.6 billion.