Fall army worm destroys hectares of maize farms in Wa Municipal

The Fall Army Worm has attacked 3,587 hectares of maize farms, destroying 37 hectares completely and affecting 3,829 farmers in the Wa Municipal.

This negative development nearly eroded the gains in the agriculture sector but for government’s quick responses with the provision of chemicals and insecticides to farmers to reverse it.

Besides the delivery of the chemicals and insecticides, government had supplied 69,807 various brands of fertilizers out which 7,306 had been distributed to farmers in the Municipality, under the “Planting for Food and Jobs Programme”.

Mr Issahaku Tahiru Moomin, Wa Municipal Chief Executive, made these known when he addressed the first ordinary meeting of the second session of the Wa Municipal Assembly in Wa on Wednesday.

He said under the programme, 1,117 bags had been received comprising 600 bags of maize, 100 bags of soyabean, 50 bags of sorghum, and 367 bags of rice, of which 635 bags had been distributed to beneficiary farmers.

Mr. Tahiru said 600 bags of maize, soyabean 15 bags, sorghum five bags and rice 15 bags had been supplied to 2442 farmers who cultivated 2442 acres of farmland.

He was optimistic that with the interventions, the outlook of agriculture productivity at the end of the cropping season would be quite positive provided the rains lasted up to the end of October.

On revenue generation, Mr Tahiru said the Assembly had been able to mobilise GH¢500, 453.45 out of the GH¢1,000,000.00 budgeted for the year.

He said the increase was as a result of pragmatic measures put in place including the improvement of the revenue data base and the deployment of revenue taskforce for the mobilisation of revenue.

Mr. Tahiru however said the performance of the external revenue sources of the Assembly was abysmal recording GH¢1,207,920.89 out of the GH¢8, 699,727.69 budgeted for the year, representing 13.90 per cent as against 45 per cent last year.