Five things you need to know about the locust outbreak

Locusts are a collection of certain species of short-horned grasshoppers and are currently posing an enormous, immediate threat to food security and livelihoods in east Africa. The UN has described the situation as “extremely alarming” and here are five things to know about these deadly swarms.

1. What is the problem?

The new wave of locusts present “an extremely alarming and unprecedented threat” to food security and livelihoods, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). A swarm of just more than a third of a square mile can eat the same amount of food in one day as 35,000 people.
The FAO has warned that the food security of 25 million people could be endangered by the locusts and tens of thousands of hectares of cropland and pasture have already been damaged in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia with potentially severe consequences in a region where 11.9 million people are already food insecure.
In Ethiopia a million people need emergency food aid after 500,000 acres of crops have already been wiped out, according to the Ethiopian government and the FAO.

2. What areas are affected?

An increasing number of new swarms are currently forming in north and central Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia. South Sudan and Uganda are at risk and there is also concern about new swarms forming in Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen. Keith Cressman, locust forecasting expert for the FAO, said Yemen is a “frontline” country for locusts because of the war.

3. How big are these swarms?

Widespread rains that fell in late March are expected to cause a second wave of dramatic increases in locust numbers in the coming months. The first wave of this year took place in February when eight east African countries experienced the worst outbreak in 70 years.
In the current outbreak, one swarm in Kenya measured 40km by 60km and as many as 150 million locusts can gather in a square kilometre but the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is predicting that a continuation through late March and April could see the existing number of locusts grow by 400 times by June.

4. What is causing these unprecedented outbreaks?

Climate change has created unprecedented conditions for the locusts to breed in the usually barren desert of the Arabian gulf, according to experts, and the insects were then able to spread through Yemen, where civil war has devastated the ability to control locust populations. Some forecasters suggest that an increase in the frequency of Indian Ocean cyclones could be due to global heating, which may lead to more regular locust swarming in Africa.
In previous decades locust outbreaks have lasted roughly only two years but without preventive systems, these new outbreaks will last longer, happen more frequently and spread further.

5. What can be done about it?

Because their occurrence and movements are hard to predict coupled with the fact that they move very fast over large, often very remote areas, there is no reliable way to tackle a swarm of locusts. Aerial spraying from planes and drones is almost the only effective means of controlling locusts but there have been complaints that the pesticides are affecting livestock.
The measures put in place to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic are also further complicating efforts to fight the infestation as crossing borders has become harder and pesticide deliveries are held up.
The FAO has appealed for $153 million in aid for the desert locust crisis. So far, $111 million has been pledged or received.
If you would like to help stem the crisis these swarms are causing, please consider donating to one of these organisations.