March 23, 2020

Locust invasion and the food crisis in Horn of Africa

topic:	Natural disaster
located:	Yemen, Somalia, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea
editor:	Bob Koigi

The Horn of Africa has in recent months been battling a locust invasion of epidemic proportions as the voracious insects devour crops and pasture in what now threatens an already volatile food security situation in the region.

The locusts are believed to have migrated from Yemen and increased in number due to the unusual weather patterns that have been fanned by climate change offering ideal conditions for the insects to lay eggs and multiply. From Yemen they moved across the Red Sea to Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya. The invasion is the worst in the region, with Kenya having last experienced it 70 years ago, and Somalia and Ethiopia over two and half decades. Already Somalia has issued a national emergency to allow it to coordinate a response to the catastrophe.

What makes this infestation particularly dire is that it comes months after prolonged drought and floods that took a toll on crop production and could spark a food crisis with up to 20 million people staring at food insecurity.

A swarm of the ravenous insects can consume as much food in a day as 35,000 people, with FAO estimating that they will impact the livelihood of one in ten people on the planet, which makes them the world’s most dangerous migratory pest.

Due to the speed with which they breed, there are fears that the current population could grow 500 times by June even as efforts to contain them remain uncoordinated and haphazard. The latest invasion rekindles memories of the 2003 to 2005 infestation in West Africa that cost $2.5 billion in harvest losses while threatening the lives of millions of households.

Yet this could be more severe, going by the rate and speed with which the locusts are spreading. Should they cross more borders and invade extra regions, we could be staring at a plague whose impacts will take years to reverse. Already they have been spotted in Arabia, Egypt and along the India-Pakistan border. Urgent intervention should revolve around monitoring and control to ensure early detection and warning with governments and relevant institutions introducing mechanisms that reduce their populations and prevent them from forming and spreading.

Image: christels