When Catherine Wanjala woke up in the morning and saw the little purple flowers in her maize field in western Kenya, it broke her heart.
The sprinkling of pretty blossoms was a terrible omen; her field was riddled with witchweed, a parasitic plant that attaches to the roots of crops like maize and sorghum, starving them of nutrients. "Seeing my plants shrivel up and turn yellow would make me cry," says Wanjala, recalling the time two years ago when the plant wreaked havoc and decimated the family's income. Wanjala is hardly the only farmer grappling with witchweed's curse.
Across sub-Saharan Africa, the plant known scientifically as striga hermonthica causes an estimated $7-14 billion (Sh903 billion-1.81 trillion) of damage yearly, wiping out harvests and hitting the livelihoods of more than 100 million people. Now, thousands like Wanjala are fighting back - with an environmentally friendly fungal bioherbicide that's gaining ground in Kenya - and soon elsewhere in eastern Africa, with support from the World Food Programme (WFP). Produced by Kenya-based social enterprise Toothpick, it is among just a handful of commercialised bioherbicides in the world.
Unlike a chemical herbicide, the locally-sourced fungal spores target witchweed and are unlikely to cause harm to other plants or humans, making it both safer and more effective. Farmers coat their seeds with the product before planting.
