The Agriculture Affairs is struggling to exterminate red palm weevil from date farms across the region, reported by Al-Yaum. Despite all the efforts to control the infestation, the pests have affected more than 12,000 palm trees in Qatif alone. "The number of trees affected by red palm weevil in Qatif last year was 12,944 palm trees, which is 1.19 percent of the total number of examined trees. All the affected trees underwent treatment processes based on the program's plan," reported by a source under in the Agriculture Affairs. "Inspectors of the Agriculture Affairs made 11,993 visits to the area in 2016. It covered all 4,613 farms in Dammam, Al-Khobar, Saihat, Qatif, Safwa, Jubail and Ras Tanura. The number of palm trees in the region is put at 641,987," said the region›s Director General of Agriculture Tariq Al-Mulhim. He said there were 1.2 million visits and treatments. "Based on 264 visits, 227 farms examined contained 151,511 Washingtonian palm trees. From the 151,511 Washingtonian palms, 135 were infected by red palm weevil. All the affected trees were treated following the treatment plan. However, 94 affected trees were removed," said Al-Mulhim. He emphasized that his administration exerted lots of efforts to exterminate red palm weevil from the region›s farms. They did not just check the farms but also visited houses, villas, castles, apartments, and government agencies. "The number of pheromone traps distributed in areas under examination reached 2,423 traps by the end of December 2016. Almost 101,600 insects were captured," explained Al-Mulhim. He added that the number of pheromone traps has been increased based on instructions from the National Center for Palm Trees and Dates. "The program led several campaigns last year in Tarout area in order to exclude the insect. They included 13,091 palm trees in 304 farms. The palm trees were examined in 30 days in a total of 614 visits. During these visits, the examination, treatment and spraying of pesticides took place," said Al-Mulhim. He also said the inspection teams could not visit 70 closed farms as well as six marginalized farms. "The program is participating in many events and communicating with students as well. This is a good opportunity to raise awareness among people of the insects' danger and harmful effects. It also explains the main obstacles the inspection team faces when exterminating these insects. Finally, they give guidelines to prevent these insects from appearing," said Al-Mulhim. He further added the program aims at exchanging experience and effectively exterminating the insect once and for all. "For instance, it cooperates with Gulf and international organizations by arranging meetings with the Green Roofs team from Bahrain and FAO. FAO visited some farms to look at the process of exterminating the red palm weevil," said Al-Mulhim. He explained that the program honors farmers who work hard to maintain perfect farms following instructions. This encourages the farmers to allow engineers and responsible authorities to examine their farms, he added.
