By Musa Mdluli

MBABANE:Mandla Tshauke, the Minister of Agriculture and Cooperative has officially announced the ‘invasion’ of Umgundzatjani, an African worm that consumes and destroys maize and other crops.

Addressing a press conference on Monday in the capital city-Mbabane, the Agriculture Minister urged farmers to be vigilant and adopt preventive measures including changing the cultivation methods to prevent the spread of the worms.

“You can use your tractor to create ‘umsele’ at the edge of the field so that when the worms come, they will struggle to go up and die. You can also use maize and feed your chickens to the direction of the worms so that, as the chickens continuously feed on the maize, they will identify and feed on the worms”, he said.