Farmers at Ndibe village in Ward 18 of the Gwanda rural district have lost their entire tomato crop to the pest-commonly known as tomato leaf miner.
Loveness Ndlovu, leader of the Zenzele Community Garden: "We had a thriving tomato crop in 2021 and it was destroyed by this disease called Tuta absoluta. … This disease wiped out our crop.”
The disease mainly targets tomatoes, tobacco, eggplants and cabbages and it is spreading rapidly in most parts of the country. "We are now doing crop rotation and monitoring pests on our tomato crop. If this pest does not affect our crops we can easily earn more than 180,000 from crop sales," Ndlovu said.
Source: herald.co.zw