Locust plagues continue in East Africa

First published 1st May 2020
by Tom Warneke
Africa | Understanding Your World | Resolving Incidents & Crisis

Living the coronavirus pandemic and focus being on health systems, the economy and a potential restart in various countries, it’s an easy time to forget about some nations that are harder hit tangentially.

East Africa has over the past months been hit by a plague of locusts affecting much of the eastern continent. But coronavirus is impacting the fight greatly. Delays in logistics and supply chain mean that pesticides, helicopters, resources and other supplies are all unavailable. The outbreak is the worst locust outbreak East Africa has seen in decades, ultimately threatening millions of people’s livelihoods.

Funding

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) requested upwards of $153 million to fight the plague months ago however supplies haven’t started arriving until mid March, peak coronavirus disruption time. At the time of writing, most supplies and resources have arrived.

And now a second wave

A second wave of locusts however have started attacking the Eastern nations across Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia — sometimes a plague 20x the size.

The locusts themselves are thought to have been carried by winds from the Arabian Gulf and bread exponentially fast due to heavy rains in East Africa. The initial wave earlier may have been timed better as most famers had already completed their harvest however this new wave being seen is arriving at the beginning of the seeding time, the new planting cycle.

Food Insecurity & Famine

A small swarm of locusts can travel as much as 150 kilometres in a 24-hour period and take over crops and food that a population of 35,000 people would consume in a day. That’s mathematically each locust consuming the food of 233 people.

With heavy rains and wet conditions, the locusts will lay eggs which potentially will unleash a third wave by mid year — just in time for the mid year harvest.

With food insecurity and the potential for famine already gripping the region as well as the lockdowns due to coronavirus and recent droughts and floods, Severe food insecurity is perilously close.

Delayed response

Regional and national governments have been doing their best to respond but the scale of the crisis, affecting eight nations in the region, has been critically difficult to manage.

Desert locusts haven’t previously appeared in East Africa for many generations meaning many governments are unprepared. While FAO has been supplying resources and helping spray the plague using air-drops, the FAO has ultimately been hampered due to delays in donor funding.

Orders for equipment and materials were requested mid February due to supply chain issues.The logistical bottlenecks due to coronavirus have been tentatively alleviated by a diversification in suppliers but much of the coronavirus restrictions seen globally are affecting the entire NGO sector to move, travel and provide urgent assistance.

Long Term Issues

Long term effects are visible. In Somalia, 55% of arable land in the plague areas have been effected. Similarly in Ethiopia, 200,000 hectares of cropland were affected. According to an assessment by the FAO, upwards of one million people will need food aid because of this.

“The likelihood is they will need support until the next harvest in November/December, which is quite a long time,” said Sarah King, a livelihoods and food security advisor at the Norwegian Refugee Council.

What next?

As the second wave of locusts start to mature and lay eggs, attentions turn to the next wave. The ‘long rains’ — usually March to May will aid their growing process, potentially meaning a plague 400x the size of the first wave.

Controlling the outbreak is likely to be years. A previous outbreak in Madagascar lasted almost twenty four months, an outbreak in the Sahel region much longer.