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Ethiopia struggles to suppress desert locust infestation

Swarms of desert locusts have damaged 200,000 hectares of crops in a region already struggling with food insecurity.

Jemal Ahmed, 38, chases a swarm of locusts with machete after it stormed his sorghum and sweet cane farm in Jawaha village near Kamise town, Amhara region, Ethiopia [Tiksa Negeri/Reuters]
Published On 21 Oct 202021 Oct 2020
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Mother of 10 Marima Wadisha screamed, threw rocks, and in desperation even fired bullets at the locusts that descended on her sorghum fields in northeast Ethiopia.

But the insect swarms were so relentless that her entire crop – her family’s only source of income – was destroyed.

“They never left for a week. We are left with an empty harvest … How can I feed my children like this?” the widow said, surrounded by five of her kids as she held a bundle of damaged sorghum.

The locust invasion is Ethiopia’s worst in 25 years, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

It has damaged an estimated 200,000 hectares (490,000 acres) of land since January, threatening food supplies. A single square-kilometre swarm can eat as much food in a day as 35,000 people.

It is part of a once-in-a-generation succession of swarms that has plagued East Africa and the Red Sea region since late 2019, with the coronavirus pandemic exacerbating the crisis this year by disrupting FAO’s supply chain of pesticides and other equipment to fight them off.

“The biggest challenge now in the region is here, in Ethiopia, and we are working on that together with our partners like the FAO,” said the Desert Locust Control Organization’s Director for Eastern Africa Stephen Njoka.

Conflict and chaos in Yemen, where some of the swarms originated, have made spraying pesticide by aeroplane at the source impossible. That, combined with unusually heavy rains, has swelled the swarms spreading across Ethiopia.

The World Bank has said the insects could cost East Africa and Yemen $8.5bn this year, and the FAO’s Ethiopia representative Fatouma Seid fears the pattern of destruction will be repeated next year.

“Infestation will continue into 2021. We are being reinvaded and the swarms will then go to Kenya,” she said.

A swarm of locusts is seen in a sorghum farm in Jawaha village in Ethiopia. [Tiksa Negeri/Reuters]
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A man sprays pesticides against a swarm of locusts at a farm in Jawaha village near Kamise town, Amhara region. [Tiksa Negeri/Reuters]
A single square-kilometre swarm can eat as much food in a day as 35,000 people. [Tiksa Negeri/Reuters]
Fatuma Seid sits with her young baby girl Sumaya Mohammed and Hamza Mohammed after a locust swarm destroyed their sorghum and peanut farm in Baatii near Kemise town. [Tiksa Negeri/Reuters]
A woman holds dead locusts that were sprayed after they destroyed her farm. [Tiksa Negeri/Reuters]
Farmers have been battling locust swarms since late 2019. [Tiksa Negeri/Reuters]
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The outbreak poses an unprecedented threat to food security. [Tiksa Negeri/Reuters]
Roughly the length of a finger, the insects fly together by the millions and devour crops. [Tiksa Negeri/Reuters]
Indiro Ahmed, 36, chases away a swarm of locusts after they stormed his farm in Jawaha village. [Tiksa Negeri/Reuters]


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