TIRUCHY: With Maize cultivation expected to start in a few days, the agriculture department along with Agricultural Technology Management Agency (ATMA) organised an awareness program to educate farmers on the steps they need to take to prevent fall armyworm (FAW) attack. Last season, 16,000 farmers cultivated maize on 15,000 hectares of land. Of this more than 12,000 hectares were lost to fall army worm attack.
This made farmers hesitate to cultivate the crop again. Also, this was the first instance of fall armyworm attack in the district and agriculture department officials were lost for a solution. Thus in order to create awareness among farmers on preventive measures, the agriculture department organised an outreach programme on the importance of summer ploughing which could prevent FAW attack in the early stages.