Grand Cape Mount: Caterpillars Reappear

Over 500 local farmers are reported to be affected as a result of grasshopper’s attacks on their farms in the Lofa Bridge Community, Grand Cape Mount County.

The invasion is said to be causing harm to farms and human lives in the affected areas in Lofa Bridge. Our correspondent, because of the severity of the grasshoppers’ intrusion, farmers are seeking government’s intervention, as well as those of the NGO community in Liberia.

Residents in towns and villages of Gola Konneh District told our correspondent that their farms continue to be destroyed by the crawling insects, making life unbearable.

One of the affected farmers in Gbesseh Town, Gola Konneh Distrct, and Jackson Barclay said the crops were the only means of survival for the population, and that if there nothing done faster, hunger could sweep across the entire district.

“We wanted to be self sufficient in food production, but there is nothing we can do if the government failed to act quickly by sending in some agriculture experts to examine the area,” Jackson noted.

Confirming the grasshoppers’ invasion, the District Commissioner, Amos Musa, said report about the presence of the strange insects in the area has been already forwarded to the county agriculture coordinator.

Musa call on the government to act now to prevent hunger in Gola Konneh District. Similar invasion by caterpillar worms to place in 2008 in Central Liberia, beginning in the town of Bellefanai, the headquarters of Zota District in Bong County. The invasion then spread to other parts of Bong, Lofa and Gbarpolu Counties.