Johannes Brunner
While everyone is focused on the Covid-19 outbreak, East Africa is struggling to control the abnormally large swarms of dessert locusts. Both crises are extraordinary in scale and require rapid action. The locust population grows 20-fold every three month and the next generation is currently establishing with the start of the rainy season 1. The supply chain for pesticides and biocontrolagents has been slowed down due to the Covid-19 crises 2. East Africa has to face both crises at the same time with a fragile social system and limited capital, which makes it likely to have devastating consequences for many people.
Picture 1: A man trying to defend his land from the locus attack. 6
The dessert locusts are considered the worlds most dangerous migratory pest, as an average swarm can travel up to 150 km per day while they destroy food that would suffice for 34 million people 3. Due to rainfall in the desserts of the Arabian Peninsula the population could build up and is currently eating its way through east Africa. The FAO reacted early but could not get sufficient funding to act during the population built up phase2. As the farmers’ crops are eaten away the food security for the next month isn’t secured for at least 20 Million people. Governments are taking action by spraying chemical pesticides on the swarms, but as most of the locusts already have laid eggs and will die shortly anyway the side effects of the broad-spectrum insecticides may be larger than the benefits. Broad range chemical pesticides such as these are an important tool to control large swarms of locusts as they immediately kill the insect4 but have to be applied in an early phase before they started to reproduce and on all locusts as they have a high reproduction rate.
An alternative would be the application of biological control agents. The fungi Metarhizium acridum has a similar efficacy, but doesn`t show immediate effects as synthetic pesticides. The advantage of such biocontrol agents is the specificy to a certain host, with no impact on other insects, or residues in drinking water and agricultural products4. As the fungus needs more time until the host is killed it is even more crucial to apply the fungus in an early phase. With time passing by the food insecurity in the region will worsen and taking measures will become more expensive. The FAO estimates the coast for supplying the people with food from other regions with 1 billion USD3. This shows how important an early interaction is to prevent locusts population to explode. Since the 1950 there is a surveillance program established to monitor the locusts populations. This makes early action possible and an environmentally friendly control feasible5.
For the moment, a plan of action is most important for the affected area but as the locusts are traveling fast a holistic strategy for the whole region is needed. This crises is about to have a huge direct impact on the fulfillment of the SDGs 2,6,15 (Zero Hunger, Clean Water, Life on Land) and indirect impacts on many other SDG’s. Climate change is thought to be the cause of this huge outbreak, as two cyclones started the population built up. As climate change is predominatly caused by the industrialized countries they should also account for the impacts in other regions! If the next generation of locusts can’t be controlled 100 Million people will phase food insecurity shortly.
1 https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/04/1061482
2 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/alarm-coronavirus-curbs-disrupt-east-africa-fight-locusts-200403173558211.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social+media&utm_campaign=fao
3 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30406-2
5 www.fao.org
6 https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-51618188