Taraba rice farmers raise alarm over unidentified fungal disease

Dry season rice farmers in Taraba State have raised alarm over the destruction of their farms by an unidentified fungal disease.

The state chairman of the Rice Farmers Association, Tanko Bobbo Andame, said the strange fungal disease has destroyed several rice farms in Karim-Lamido and Lau local government areas.

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Andame said a farm infected by the disease would hardly produce one-third of what it used to produce.

He said farmers have sprayed their rice farms with all the known pesticides without any positive results as the destruction of the crops persisted.

The chairman said the association had reported the outbreak to the state Ministry of Agriculture.

He said this dry season, rice farmers are unlikely to record bumper harvest because many farms have been destroyed by the strange disease.