Agricultural experts at a workshop have called for adopting integrated management techniques to overcome fall armyworm which was damaging crops and causing economic loss worth millions of rupees.

The workshop on Fall Armyworm arranged by Department of Entomology, University of Agriculture Faisalabad was presided over by UAF Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Asif Tanveer. Prof Dr Asif Tanveer stressed upon the need to conduct the valuable research and development work to fight the issue. He said that integrated pest management including chemical, biological control, and crop rotations etc should be applied to combat the situation. He called for developing the strategies to fight the pest at the initial level so that it could be dealt effectively. He said that the agricultural sector was facing the tremendous challenges including low productivity, invasive pest amid the climate changes conditions, excessive usage of pesticides, decreasing fertility and others. He said that we were irrational using our resources that was a matter of grave concern. He said that the excessive pumping of ground water was lowering down the groundwater that would pose a threat to agriculture sector. He said that strengthened academia- industry and farming community linkages would pave way to address agriculture problems.