Locust swarms continue to arrive in East Africa, Yemen, but profits made – Quartz Africa

Controlling and treating up to a million hectares of agricultural land with pesticides is necessary for East Africa and Yemen to have a good chance of avoiding a food security crisis following an unprecedented locust plague expected next month, he warns. the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

But FAO and other organizations have already helped prevent an early crisis with notable advances against swarms of migratory pests that save up to 720,000 tons of wheat, which it says would normally feed up to 5 million people.

The locust swarm threat affects ten African countries in the Greater Horn of Africa: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania and Yemen in the Middle East. Desert locusts are considered the world’s most destructive migratory pest, FAO says a single swarm can cover one square kilometer and contain up to 80 million locusts.

Although progress has been made in land treatment, the first wave of swarms has reproduced and a second, larger wave will move to the young adult stage in June, when they will fly during the critical East African harvest season .

The combination of Covid-19, recent floods and locusts have put great pressure on local and international resources to provide aid and support to farmers and people in the region.

While each country is advised to develop its own organizational and logistics structure based on swarm infestations and breeding areas, an early appeal initiated in January had raised $ 130 million in late April, or 85% of the FAO target. This will protect the livelihoods of 110,000 households and help provide information and coordination to stakeholders across the region, the UN agency said.

Up to 70% of the total budget necessary has been committed to prevent further spread of the locust infestation in Ethiopia and Somalia. It comes as Ethiopia’s agriculture ministry reports that more than 350,000 tonnes of the crop has been damaged by locusts so far, exacerbating the country’s already fragile food security situation.

As of last year, there were 26 million food insecure people in Ethiopia, home to more than 100 million people. Of this, eight million people were in urgent need of assistance, while another four million were under safety net programs.

“An additional 25 to 30 million people would be food insecure due to the damage caused by the locust swarms, along with the COVID-19 crisis,” said Umer Hussien, Ethiopia’s minister of agriculture. He says an additional 4 to 5 million tons of crops must be produced in response.

Since early 2019, Ethiopia, along with Somalia, has been at the forefront of desert locust surveillance and control operations, according to FAO. Damage to 190,588 hectares of land is so far contained with pesticides, according to a new progress report on the response in the Greater Horn of Africa and Yemen.

However, the FAO, in the report, warned that farmers who lose their crops between April and June will have no food reserves from the end of June to December 2020.

“The locust invasion, along with Covid 19, will greatly affect our food security unless concerted efforts are made,” said Yifru Tafesse, senior director of the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency. Quartz africa.

Ethiopia’s agriculture ministry estimates that production will decrease by up to 8%. The Ethiopian government, for its part, revealed its readiness to produce 37.9 million tons of harvest in the upcoming rainy season, which will begin a month later.

According to the Minister of Agriculture, around 1.2 million hectares of land that were inactive were also cleared for cultivation to boost production and prevent the food crisis caused by the locust plague and the coronavirus.

“We have also distributed [860,000 tonnes] of fertilizers as part of efforts to increase food production, “Hussien said.
Two weeks ago, FAO donated three planes to Ethiopia, bringing the total number of planes available to five in the country. The move comes as fears grow, the impact of the locust will accelerate at the end of the rainy season.

Although efforts to stem the spread of the virus are progressing well, the UN agency said it has yet to estimate the extent of the damage, although 2.5 million people are likely to be affected in the half-case scenario.

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