In East Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, traveling swarms of locusts the size of Manhattan are putting potentially hundreds of millions at risk of starvation in what the UN has called the worst outbreak in a quarter of a century.

What it means: “Millions will starve because clouds of approximately 80 million desert locusts per square kilometer are voracious,” writes Robert Rotberg, founding director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Program on Intrastate Conflict.

• “In one day they consume wheat, barley, sorghum, or maize crops that feed 35,000 people. Masses the size of cities can consume 1.8 million metric tons of vegetation every day – enough to feed 81 million people.”
• “The United Nations is to test drones equipped with mapping sensors and atomizers to spray pesticides in parts of east Africa battling an invasion of desert locusts that are ravaging crops and exacerbating a hunger crisis.”

What’s happening: The outbreak had been mostly confined to Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia initially, but the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says it’s now tracking 15 countries in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia affected by the locusts, Scientific American reports.

• “The swarms have appeared in a swath hundreds of miles wide, from South Sudan in the west to parts of Pakistan in the east.”

What’s next: Authorities in East Africa are already undertaking a coordinated campaign of aerial pesticide spraying, “but experts say the scale of the infestation is beyond local capacity as desert locusts can travel up to 150 km (95 miles) in a day,” the World Economic Forum notes.

• This threatens to increase food shortages in a region where up to 25 million people are reeling from three consecutive years of droughts and floods.
  

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  Source: https://www.axios.com/locust-swarms-starvation-africa-asia-65443ada-c9a1-40a8-b0b7-7c7398c1d82d.html

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Somalia has declared a national emergency as large swarms of locusts spread across east Africa.

The country’s Ministry of Agriculture said the insects, which consume large amounts of vegetation, posed “a major threat to Somalia’s fragile food security situation”.

There are fears that the situation may not be brought under control before the harvest begins in April.

The UN says the swarms are the largest in Somalia and Ethiopia in 25 years.

Meanwhile, neighbouring Kenya has not seen a locust threat as severe in 70 years, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

However, Somalia is the first country in the region to declare an emergency over the infestation.

• Drones tested to combat desert locusts

Somalia’s unstable security situation means that planes cannot be used to spray insecticide from the air.

In January, the FAO called for international help in fighting the swarms in the Horn of Africa, warning that locust numbers across the region could grow 500 times by June.

The swarms spread into east Africa from Yemen across the Red Sea, after heavy rainfall in late 2019 created ideal conditions for the insects to flourish.

Locusts can travel up to 150km (93 miles) in a day. Each adult insect can eat its own weight in food daily.

In December, a locust swarm forced a passenger plane off course in Ethiopia. Insects smashed into the engines, windshield, and nose, but the aircraft was able to land safely in the capital, Addis Ababa.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51348517

The post Somalia declares emergency over locust swarms first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.