Recently, I had cause to travelled to Taraba after a long while. What struck me was how much more land has been placed under cultivation. It was interesting to see huge tracks of land with healthy crops. It thrilled me to no end. Here are some pictures of the beautiful landscape being put to use to help feed our citizens.
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However, it is not all good news. There were traces of army worm invasion in some farms. I stopped by to have a look.
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And here, I found the culprit.
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I met with a farmer whom I talked to and went round his farm. His complaints expectedly were: (1)Army worms, (2) striga weed (also known locally as wata wata), (3) fertilizer. He thinks the army worms are the worst of the three. I couldn't agree more.
After extracting the worms to show me, he left me staring at the distructive worm wiggling on my palm. As he walked away he reminded me in a terse voice to make sure I squashed that one worm dead. That one worm to him was not inconsequential in the war to save his crops. The tone of his voice gave me a sense that the battle line has been drawn between bugs and farmers in Taraba. And may the farmers win.
