Locust plague threatens food security for millions

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While we've been battling Covid19 other countries have also had the problem of huge locust swarms threatening crops.
Climate change has meant an increase in the number of cyclones in some areas meaning the locust breeding season has been extended.

Locust crisis poses a danger to millions, forecasters warn

Experts fear swarms like those seen in Africa will become more common as tropical storms create favourable breeding conditions

www.theguardian.com

Hundreds of billions of locusts swarm in East Africa

East Africa could be on the verge of a food crisis, if swarms of locusts are not controlled.

www.bbc.co.uk

East Africa’s plague of locusts and the bizarre climate science behind it

Human activity has made an ocean circulation pattern misbehave—triggering a weird confluence of events that has caused the infestations.

www.nationalgeographic.com

Home | Locust Watch | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

Locust Watch is FAO’s one-stop shop for all information concerning Desert Locust. The portal provides timely forecasts and early warnings to prevent and tack...

www.fao.org

FAO - News Article: FAO appeals for urgent support to fight worsening Desert Locust upsurge in the Horn of Africa

www.fao.org

China may send ducks to battle Pakistan's locust swarms

The hungry ducks could be sent to eat the insects that are devouring crops in Pakistan, experts say.

www.bbc.co.uk

China could deploy 100,000 ducks to neighbouring Pakistan to help tackle swarms of crop-eating locusts, according to reports.

 

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China could deploy 100,000 ducks to neighbouring Pakistan to help tackle swarms of crop-eating locusts, according to reports.

Fake news unfortunately.

China will not send ducks to tackle locusts in Pakistan, says expert

Beijing academic rejects local news report that 100,000 ducks would be sent to fight plague

www.theguardian.com

 

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Locusts are amazing creatures . They are usually solitary but when under the correct conditions when they meet each other a cascade of serotonin is released through their nervous systems, they form a swarm and have it large .

However, under suitable conditions of drought followed by rapid vegetation growth, serotonin in their brains triggers a dramatic set of changes: they start to breed abundantly, becoming gregarious and nomadic (loosely described as migratory) when their populations become dense enough. They form bands of wingless nymphs which later become swarms of winged adults. Both the bands and the swarms move around and rapidly strip fields and cause damage to crops. The adults are powerful fliers; they can travel great distances, consuming most of the green vegetation wherever the swarm settles.[1]

 

[SheilaNaGig]

This is getting worse.

Any aid or help that mignt otherwise be available is obstructed or simply not forthcoming because of the COVID-19 crisis.

It’s increasingly likely now that famine will follow.



“Cost of shipping pesticides triples because of fewer flights

New swarms forming in Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen, Iran”

Coronavirus Slowing Desert Locust Response Amid New Swarms

The coronavirus pandemic is hampering the fight against locusts in East Africa as the delivery of pesticides and equipment is delayed, heightening the threat to food security at the worst time.

www.bloomberg.com

 

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New, larger wave of locusts threatens millions in Africa
AP 10/04/20

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Weeks before the coronavirus spread through much of the world, parts of Africa were already threatened by another kind of plague, the biggest locust outbreak some countries had seen in 70 years.

Now the second wave of the voracious insects, some 20 times the size of the first, is arriving. Billions of the young desert locusts are winging in from breeding grounds in Somalia in search of fresh vegetation springing up with seasonal rains.

Millions of already vulnerable people are at risk. And as they gather to try to combat the locusts, often in vain, they risk spreading the virus — a topic that comes a distant second for many in rural areas.

It is the locusts that “everyone is talking about,” said Yoweri Aboket, a farmer in Uganda. “Once they land in your garden they do total destruction. Some people will even tell you that the locusts are more destructive than the coronavirus. There are even some who don’t believe that the virus will reach here.”

 

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How shit.

 

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Another sort of plague Locusts have hit east Africa hard Outline - Read & annotate without distractions
The Economist. July 04, 2020

VAST SWARMS of locusts have swept through Kenya and Ethiopia since January, devastating fields, pastures and livelihoods. Governments have struggled to suppress them. They have continued to breed in their billions, threatening whole economies, which are also being battered by the covid-19 pandemic.

Like humans, locusts eat maize, sorghum and millet. They also chomp the grass that sustains livestock. Swarms like one that ravaged Kenya earlier this year can contain 200bn locusts and eat as much in a day as the entire population of Germany. And more may be on their way. “We are not seeing the end of the tunnel yet,” says Fatouma Seid of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).