Fall armyworm, the invasive plant-eating pest, has spread further in South China, and is likely to reach the country's 'corn belt' by this month, according to a report by US Department of Agriculture released Friday.
In the last one month, the area impacted by this 'pocket-sized monster' has grown over 10-folds to 90,000 ha from 8,500 ha in early May.
So far, the pest has spread across 15 Chinese provinces, predominantly damaging corn and sugarcane production. "There is high probability that it will continue to spread across China, reaching the Northeast China corn belt by June 2019," the USDA report said.
The Northeast plain accounts for nearly 30% of China's total corn production.
China is the world's second largest corn producer after the US and the USDA said in its May forecast that the production in China will likely to fall 0.7% year on year to around 257.33 million mt in 2018-19.
The pest attack in China comes at a time when the US is also battling production issues with wet weather keeping corn farmers away from their fields during the most crucial planting period.
Market participants have forecast production of corn in the US to be at nearly 347-348 million mt, below the USDA's estimates of 366.3 million mt, and the acreage to be around 83-84 million ha, against USDA's forecast of 92.8 million ha.
FALL ARMYWORM SPREAD
So far, fall armyworm has spread across Anhui, Chongqing, Fujian, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Guangdong, Guizhou, Hainan, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan, Yunnan, and Zhejiang provinces of South China, the USDA report said.
According to the report, the pest is likely to spread across all of the China's grain producing areas in the coming months.
The region under impact of the pest, is the producer of 100% of the country's sugarcane, 81% rice, 64% peanuts, 37% soybean, and 25% of corn, USDA report said quoting China's National Bureau of Statistics.
The challenges that China is facing in dealing with the pest is lack of pesticides registered to control fall army worm for any crop, and the fact that Chinese farmers do not have the financial resources and training to effectively manage the worm, the USDA report said.
Since 2016, the fall armyworm has caused extensive economic damage across Africa, South Asia, and South East Asia.
