The Economist Asia - 20.01.2018

The EconomistJanuary 20th 2018 Middle East and Africa 41

2 Turkey fears the fighting could drive many
Syrians across its border to join the 3.4m
refugees it already harbours.
The incursion could derail the rap-
prochement between Turkey and Russia,
casting doubt on Russia’s ability to medi-
ate an end to the war. Relations between
the two countries, which back opposing
sides in the war, had begun to warm. Tur-
key had agreed to cut back its support for
the rebels in return for Russia’s assent to a
Turkish military operation in 2016 that split
the Kurds’ territory in two. More recently,
the two countries had worked together to
create four “de-escalation” zones where re-
bels and the regime’s troops were sup-
posed to stop killing each other. The agree-
ment was meant to pave the way for
Russian-led peace talks.
Since MrAssad’s forces entered Idlib,
however, Turkey hassounded less happy
with Russia’s vision for post-war Syria. In
December President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
called MrAssad a terrorist and said the Syr-
ian president had no role in Syria’s future, a
view at odds with Russia’s. Mr Erdogan’s
comment implied a warning to Russia that
he could scuttle Russian-led peace talks,
should the Kurds be allowed to take part.
On January 13th Turkey raised the stakes by
announcing that a ground operation to
seize Afrin, where Russian troops are
based, would begin “in the coming days”.
This may mess up Russia’s plans to host
a peace conference in the Black Sea resort
of Sochi later thismonth. Russia has al-
ready asked various Kurds to the talks,
which have been postponed twice, but has
steered clear of asking any from the Kurd-
ish party that runs the area that includes
Afrin, in order to allay Turkish concerns.
Western governments and Syria’s op-
position leaders see the Sochi conference
as Russia’s attempt to undermine UN-
sponsored peace talks in Geneva that have
gone nowhere, snagged on Mr Assad’s fate.
But the more territory he captures, the less
willing he will be to negotiate an end to his
own rule. 7

SYRIA

Damascus IRAQ

Deir

ez-Zor

Raqqa

Palmyra

Aleppo

Afrin

Beirut

Homs

Euphrates^

TURKEY

JORDAN

ISRAEL

LEBANON

Med. Sea

Sparsely

populated

IDLIB

Areas of control January 2018

Source: Institute for the Study of War

Syrian government

Islamic State Kurds

Rebels Rebels/Turkish troops

100 km

Russian

air base

A

FRICA has been invaded on quiet

wings. First they landed by ship in the

west. Then they spread across the conti-

nent, wreaking havoc as they went. Now,

two yearslater, the invaders are worrying

officials in almost every sub-Saharan

country. It’s not the French, British or even

the Chinese. This time it’s a simple Ameri-

can moth, the voracious fall armyworm,

that has marched through Africa’s fields

and is threatening to cause a food crisis.

When justa hungry caterpillar, the fall

armyworm will happily munch on more

than 80 plant species. But its favourite is

maize—the staple for more than 200m sub-

Saharan Africans. The UN’s Food and Agri-

culture Organisation (FAO) estimates that

sub-Saharan Africa has about 35m hect-

ares of maize grown by smallholders, and

that almost all of it is now infested or at risk

of infestation.

If the pest is not controlled, it could gob-

ble up as much as 20% of the region’s total

maize crop. Some countries may be partic-

ularly hard hit. The Centre for Agriculture

and Biosciences International (CABI), an

association of agricultural research centres

in 12 countries, thinks that big producers

such as Nigeria or Tanzania could lose

more than half their maize harvest.

Originally from the Americas, these

worms were a plague there for hundreds

of years. Yet American farmers have beat-

en them back with the help of genetically

modified plants and advanced pesticides.

By contrast, the worms are meeting little re-

sistance in Africa. They were first officially

detected in Nigeria in January 2016. Now

they can be found in 43 other African coun-

tries (see map).

Two factors explain their rapid spread.

The first is biology. Africa already has its

own variety of the worm, which farmers

can control. But the foreign species mi-

grates and reproduces much faster. After it

turns into a moth, it can fly as far as 100km

(60 miles) a night. During her ten days of

adulthood, a female moth can lay up to

1,000 eggs.

The second is that most of Africa’s farm-

ing is done by smallholders who use out-

dated techniques and whose yields are al-

ready low. The worm “is coming on top of

other constant threats faced by farmers, in-

cluding drought, new crop diseases, and

low soil fertility,” says Joe DeVries of the

Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.

Yet labour-intensive farming also offers

opportunity. Experts fret that if farmers use

too much cheap pesticide to kill the

worms, they may end up poisoning their

crops. Allan Hruska of the FAOhopes in-

stead to teach farmers to use some of the

techniques that smallholders in the Ameri-

cas have long used. These include mixing

crops, encouraging natural predators and

patrolling fields to crush the eggs by hand.

Better still would be to copy America’s

commercial farmers, who plantGMcrops

that are largely resistant to the worm. Al-

most all African countries apart from

South Africa have formally or informally

banned GMcrops, following iffy advice

from ecowarriors. Lifting these restrictions

would lead to fewer hungry caterpillars

and fewer hungry people. 7

An army that marches on its stomach

The very hungry

caterpillars

Spodoptera frugiperda has taken Africa

NIGERIA

TANZANIA

Confirmed

Sources: CABI; FAO

Countries affected by fall armyworm

Suspected/awaiting confirmation

Jan 2016 Apr 2017 Dec 2017

On Friday he ate a field of maize