Project Summary – A three-year USAID/OFDA funded project entitled “Reinforcing and Expanding the Community-Based Fall Armyworm Spodoptera frugiperda (Smith) Monitoring, Forecasting for Early Warning and Timely Management to Protect Food Security and Improve Livelihoods of Vulnerable Communities” – CBFAMFEW II kicked off in 2020.

The project aims to effectively integrate scaling initiatives for sustainable Fall armyworm (FAW) management in Eastern and Southern Africa with a reinforced and expanded Community-based FAW monitoring, forecasting efforts for timely and effective actions to protect food security and improve livelihoods in the region.

The project aims at consolidating the successes of the first phase of the CBFAMFEW project in some of the already established countries (Rwanda, Uganda, and Ethiopia) by synthesizing information generated into practical IPM actions. Further, the project aims to replicate the success in Eastern Africa to Southern Africa (Zambia and Malawi). Preliminary results provided in-depth insight on pest distribution dynamic on the continent and created awareness to hundreds of extension officers and farmers for reducing pest burden. Building on these positive outcomes, the model could be reinforced through linkages between the various actors for sustainability. Expansion to new countries becomes necessary for regional containment of the pest.

Currently, a comprehensive Integrated Pest Management (IPM) package has been developed by icipe and partners for monitoring and managing FAW using

(i) pheromone traps and scouting procedures,

(ii) intercropping and habitat management practices such as Push-pull,

(iii) biopesticides and biorationals,

(iv)conservation of natural enemies.

The project is a collaborative effort led by icipe in partnership with National Research and Extension Systems (NARES) to achieve project outputs and activities with other regional and international stakeholder organizations such as FAO, DLCO-EA, CIMMYT and IITA for fieldwork, policy engagement, outreach, and dissemination. Private sector partners such as Real IPM, Kenya Biologics, seed sector partners engaged in the production of maize and companion crops will be involved in the commercialization and upscaling of management products/tools. National agricultural research and extension agencies and policymakers in the different countries targeted by the project also benefit from capacity development.

The current project targets 5 sub-Saharan Africa countries: Ethiopia, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia, whereby 100 million people are affected by the pest in the target area, with 180,000 people targeted by the end of the program. The project is being implemented using a two-pronged approach, articulated into result areas or outputs.