Locust Swarms Threaten Parts Of East Africa

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A man holds a desert locust in his hand in Kenya’s Rift Valley. Farmers in central Kenya fear the locusts will strip vegetation from the rangeland where their livestock graze.





Fredrik Lerneryd/Getty Images



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As locusts by the billions descend on parts of Kenya in the worst outbreak in 70 years, small planes are flying low over affected areas to spray pesticides in what experts call the only effective control.





Ben Curtis/AP



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Ben Curtis/AP



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«They can easily cross the Red Sea so they can go from Sudan to Saudi Arabia in a day, for example,» Cressman says of the biblical pests. «They can easily cross from northern Somalia directly across the Indian Ocean to India and Pakistan.»

And when they arrive somewhere, they’re incredibly destructive, ravenously devouring vegetation.

«Imagine a swarm the size of Manhattan in New York, which is not a very big swarm,» he says. «That single swarm in one day will eat the same amount of food as everybody in New York and California.»

For local farmers, the arrival of a cloud of locusts can spell doom. Since last year, FAO has helped to set up a fleet of 28 aircraft in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia. The planes both spot for swarms and carry out aerial spraying against them.

«We’re not trying to exterminate the locusts, or eliminate them completely,» Cressman says. «We are just trying to bring them down to lower levels. Then natural predation, natural diseases, will manage the locusts as they normally do in most years.» But adding to the current woes of the region, even the funding for those aircraft is in danger of drying up.

The FAO Deputy Director-General Laurent Thomas is asking for an additional $40 million dollars to support the operation. «The last time Africa saw an upsurge of locusts approaching this scale, in the Sahel, it took two years and more than $500 million to bring under control,» Thomas said Tuesday in a statement. «This (current) upsurge was even bigger, but East Africa is poised to end it — provided governments can keep those aircraft flying.»