Plague of locusts puts Africa under threat
AFRICA is bracing itself for a locust invasion, the largest in 50 years, at a time when the continent's locust control organisations are
collapsing.
The Migratory Locust Control Organisation was set up in Mali by the colonial powers after the locust plague of 1930 to monitor the Niger delta, a traditional breeding ground for locusts. But some African states have not paid their membership fees and it has been forced into liquidation. Its aircraft and trucks were sold to repay debts.
A second regional operation, the Desert Locust and Grain Eating Bird Organisation, is also in dire financial straits. Most of its spray planes are grounded and many of its most experienced staff have left.
Civil wars, run-down pest control operations, a break-down of regional co-operation and lack of experience on the ground have all contributed to the return of the locust. As a result, Africa now faces five years of pestilence before the insects can be brought under control.
Swarms of Senegalese grasshoppers, and red, brown, desert and migratory locusts are now poised to sweep across the continent just as it emerges from the devastating drought.
The very rains that broke the drought have set off the locust threat, which some experts now believe could cause even more damage than the drought. The damp soil makes ideal breeding conditions for the insects, some of whose eggs will hatch only if there is enough moisture.
The alarming aspect of the outbreak, according to George Popov, a leading locust expert at the Tropical Development and Research Institute in London, is that it involves all five species of locust simultaneously. This has not happened since the 1920s.
Locusts are grasshoppers which change their colour, shape and behaviour when crowded together. They swarm at a density of up to 50m per square mile, and the swarms can cover hundreds of miles. A single swarm can consume more than 4,000 tons of vegetation a day.
A plague of locusts is a terrifying spectacle, graphically chronicled in the Old Testament book of Exodus: 'They covered the face of the whole land so that the land was darkened and they ate all the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees; not a green thing remained ..'
The most immediate threat is posed by the Senegalese grasshopper, swarms of which are massing in southern Mauritania, set to fly south next month into the Sahel and east as far as Sudan. As they move, the natural vegetation will be drying out and the insects will satisfy their voracious appetites on the ripening crops, laying eggs as they go.
To the east, the grasshoppers converge with the migratory locust in Sudan. There has been a big increase in their numbers and swarms have been reported as far south as Uganda. Locust experts are uncertain about the extent of this threat, as the civil war in Sudan has made it impossible to monitor the migratory locusts. However, they fear that the locusts may wipe out what little food is being grown in Sudan, a country already on the brink of widespread famine.
Desert locusts, meanwhile, are swarming in Eritrea and moving down the Red Sea towards Somalia. The Ethiopian civil war in Eritrea makes monitoring and control especially difficult.
In the past, control agencies have supplied insecticide and portable hand sprayers to Eritrean guerrillas who help to keep the locusts under control. But last month a locust control aeroplane trying to survey part of Eritrea was shot down by guerrillas. The pilot was later released
unharmed.
Despite assertions by the Eritrean People's Liberation Front that efforts to control the locusts are 'welcomed by the EPLF,' operations are at a
standstill.
The red locust, which breeds along the African Rift Valley from Malawi through Tanzania and Kenya, has also been sighted in large numbers, swarming as far east as Burundi. But perhaps the most widespread threat of all is the brown locust, still at the egg stage in the soil of Botswana and northern South Africa.
When the rains break in November, millions of these locusts will hatch and spread into southern and central Africa. Some experts now believe that it is already too late to beat them and control will have to be centred on the protection of crops.
collapsing.
The Migratory Locust Control Organisation was set up in Mali by the colonial powers after the locust plague of 1930 to monitor the Niger delta, a traditional breeding ground for locusts. But some African states have not paid their membership fees and it has been forced into liquidation. Its aircraft and trucks were sold to repay debts.
A second regional operation, the Desert Locust and Grain Eating Bird Organisation, is also in dire financial straits. Most of its spray planes are grounded and many of its most experienced staff have left.
Civil wars, run-down pest control operations, a break-down of regional co-operation and lack of experience on the ground have all contributed to the return of the locust. As a result, Africa now faces five years of pestilence before the insects can be brought under control.
Swarms of Senegalese grasshoppers, and red, brown, desert and migratory locusts are now poised to sweep across the continent just as it emerges from the devastating drought.
The very rains that broke the drought have set off the locust threat, which some experts now believe could cause even more damage than the drought. The damp soil makes ideal breeding conditions for the insects, some of whose eggs will hatch only if there is enough moisture.
The alarming aspect of the outbreak, according to George Popov, a leading locust expert at the Tropical Development and Research Institute in London, is that it involves all five species of locust simultaneously. This has not happened since the 1920s.
Locusts are grasshoppers which change their colour, shape and behaviour when crowded together. They swarm at a density of up to 50m per square mile, and the swarms can cover hundreds of miles. A single swarm can consume more than 4,000 tons of vegetation a day.
A plague of locusts is a terrifying spectacle, graphically chronicled in the Old Testament book of Exodus: 'They covered the face of the whole land so that the land was darkened and they ate all the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees; not a green thing remained ..'
The most immediate threat is posed by the Senegalese grasshopper, swarms of which are massing in southern Mauritania, set to fly south next month into the Sahel and east as far as Sudan. As they move, the natural vegetation will be drying out and the insects will satisfy their voracious appetites on the ripening crops, laying eggs as they go.
To the east, the grasshoppers converge with the migratory locust in Sudan. There has been a big increase in their numbers and swarms have been reported as far south as Uganda. Locust experts are uncertain about the extent of this threat, as the civil war in Sudan has made it impossible to monitor the migratory locusts. However, they fear that the locusts may wipe out what little food is being grown in Sudan, a country already on the brink of widespread famine.
Desert locusts, meanwhile, are swarming in Eritrea and moving down the Red Sea towards Somalia. The Ethiopian civil war in Eritrea makes monitoring and control especially difficult.
In the past, control agencies have supplied insecticide and portable hand sprayers to Eritrean guerrillas who help to keep the locusts under control. But last month a locust control aeroplane trying to survey part of Eritrea was shot down by guerrillas. The pilot was later released
unharmed.
Despite assertions by the Eritrean People's Liberation Front that efforts to control the locusts are 'welcomed by the EPLF,' operations are at a
standstill.
The red locust, which breeds along the African Rift Valley from Malawi through Tanzania and Kenya, has also been sighted in large numbers, swarming as far east as Burundi. But perhaps the most widespread threat of all is the brown locust, still at the egg stage in the soil of Botswana and northern South Africa.
When the rains break in November, millions of these locusts will hatch and spread into southern and central Africa. Some experts now believe that it is already too late to beat them and control will have to be centred on the protection of crops.