China–FAO armyworm project in Kenya, Ghana reviewed in Nairobi

China and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) held a review meeting in Nairobi on 10 November 2026 for a joint project against fall armyworm in Kenya and Ghana, the Chinese Embassy in Kenya said on 11 November. The project set up 120 farmer field schools in the two countries, directly benefiting more than 5,000 farmers, according to the embassy.

Chinese Ambassador to Kenya Guo Haiyan spoke at the opening. The director of FAO's South-South and Triangular Cooperation Division, FAO Representative in Kenya Farayi Zimudzi, and agriculture ministry officials from China, Kenya and Ghana attended.

The project was run by China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs together with FAO. The embassy said it made progress in pest monitoring and early warning, biological control, integrated pest management and capacity building in the two recipient countries, and called it a South-South technical cooperation model that can be copied.

The embassy describes fall armyworm as a global farm pest that migrates and breeds fast and can damage more than 100 crops, maize among them.

The pest invaded Kenya in 2017 and was affecting nearly all maize-growing areas by November 2025, The Star reported. "You can hardly grow maize today without using pesticides," Dr Muo Kasina, a researcher at the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation (KALRO), said, as quoted by the paper.

In July 2017, then Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Willy Bett said the government estimated the pest would cut productivity by 20 to 25 per cent that year, Business Daily reported.

The Star reported on 7 July 2025 that a South-South and Triangular Cooperation project between Kenya, China and FAO was being implemented from 2023 to 2025, with KALRO as a local research partner. Three trial sites were set up: Embu, Kitale in Trans Nzoia County and Mabanga in Bungoma County.

On 26 March 2025, FAO said that, through the FAO-China South-South Cooperation Programme, it had given Kenya's plant protection and extension officers a week-long refresher training that covered its fall armyworm early warning tool and predictive modelling. Experts from the Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, took part in the sessions. FAO also assessed KALRO's natural enemy facility and laboratory in Muguga and said it showed strong infrastructure capacity, including quarantine spaces and greenhouses.

FAO Kenya Representative (ad interim) Nyabenyi Tipo said in July 2025 that the pest had severely affected smallholder farmers and threatened national food security. "The main challenge has been the lack of knowledge among farmers and over-reliance on chemical pesticides," she said, as quoted by The Star.