Planting for food saboteurs behind army worm agenda – Afriyie Akoto

Agric Minister, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, has taken a swipe at individuals highlighting the destruction being caused by the fall armyworms saying it is an attempt to take attention from the successes of the planting for food and jobs programme by the government.

“The point of the matter is that those who are seeing the success of the planting for food and jobs want to tarnish that success by saying that there are some worms hiding somewhere eating the crops to bring about hunger and not the bumper crop,” he told Francis Abban on the Morning Starr Wednesday.

Contrary to his earlier claim that government has eliminated the fall armyworm which ravaged over 112,000 hectares of farms across the country have been defeated, the minister said enough measures have been put in place to minimise their attack.

“Have you ever in history from the Romans till now go to war and say that you have defeated the enemy by killing every soldier? no, when you kill some soldiers and they raise their flags, you have defeated them and if they were not defeated I wouldn’t be talking about bumper crop and marketing and all those concerns”.

According to Dr. Afriyie, the fall armyworm is a biological phenomenon that has come to stay and can only be controlled.

“The fall armyworm is a biological phenomenon, they have been here in Ghana for two years, and ultimately they will be here and since this is a phenomenon they are here to stay and will never go away”.