A migrant from Americas is latest threat to Indian, Asian food security

A fall armyworm invasion in Asia could have a devastating impact on Asia's maize and rice producers

It is an innocuous-looking worm with four black spots near its tail and an inverted ‘Y’ mark on its head, no larger than a matchstick. But when Indian agricultural scientists spotted it in the maize farms of southern Karnataka mid-2018, they panicked.

“The fall armyworm [as the worm is called] is a destructive pest never sighted before in India,” said Sushil K Jalali, a member of that team and principal scientist and head, division of genomic resources, ICAR-National Bureau of Agricultural Insect Resources, Bengaluru. “So when we heard it may have reached maize growing areas in and around Bengaluru, we