Growing locust swarms threaten food supplies in East Africa: FAO

The Horn of Africa region faces an unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods as swarms continue to increase in Ethiopia Somalia and Kenya, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has said.

In Kenya swarms have spread to 14 counties, just kilometers away from neighbouring Uganda and South Sudan.

The agency has warned that there is an unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods as the swarms increase.

On Monday (February 10), Uganda started spraying swarms of desert locusts that invaded over the weekend, a government official said, in a bid to tackle the major threat to livestock and key crops such as coffee.

The plague of locusts has already caused extensive damage in several countries, including Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya and entered northeastern Uganda on Sunday.

Somalia is the first country in the region to declare a state of emergency over the infestation.

This is the worst locust situation Somalia and Ethiopia have seen in 25 years.

The last time Kenya was affected with an infestation of this scale was 70 years ago.

Food crops and livestock forage in the three countries are being heavily impacted. The swarms are uncommonly large and can consume huge amounts of crops and forage.

"We were in Kenya two weeks ago. We have seen large swarms of locusts. For that, what we need to do is aerial spraying. What we saw here this morning, it's hopper bands so they are not flying yet. For that, we can do ground control operations. So, there is a variety of tools that we have at our disposal to do these control operations. The problem we have in the region is that the planting season will occur very soon. It will start April, May in most of the countries. It means that if we are not able to control locust populations for the moment, there will be a huge impact on the forthcoming planting season," said Dominique Burgeon, director of the FAO's emergencies and rehabilitation division.

Burgeon was in Somalia last week to assess the situation in the country.

Across East Africa, 19 million people are already facing severe acute food insecurity and experts have warned that this will get worse as this is a key season for pastoralists and farmers.

In Kenya and Somalia, it is the most important cropping season of the year.

While this is not the key cropping season in Ethiopia, it is crucial to the regeneration of pastures and forage vegetation for pastoralists and their livestock.

Several swarms also recently arrived on the eastern coast of Oman and moved south to Yemen.

In the Horn of Africa, governments are conducting aerial and ground control operations, spraying pesticides to kill the large swarms. But their capacities are stretched to the limit by the speed of the pests and the scale of infestation.

In parts of Somalia, control operations are difficult due to insecurity.

FAO is raising funds and surging experts and supplies to affected countries to boost locust control measures.

The Desert Locust is the most dangerous migratory pest in the world. A locust swarm of one square kilometer can eat the same amount of food in one day as 35,000 people.

Another round of breeding has now begun in all three most affected countries. Left unchecked, and given additional rains expected - an enabler for Desert Locust reproduction - the scale of the upsurge could grow 500 times by June.

FAO has appealed for 76 million dollars to help combat the locusts, but says it has only received 19 million from donors so far.

"It's time for the international community to understand that it's an issue that needs to be dealt with now. Otherwise, we will turn into a situation of a plague. There will be high levels of acute food insecurity, there will be million more people that will require food assistance and it will take us years to control the situation."

Desert Locust plagues occur infrequently and can have devastating impacts on crops, pastures, food security and livelihoods.

(Source: Reuters)

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk