Urgent action needed to prevent full-scale locust plague in northwest Africa - UN

Warning of an upsurge in locust proliferation in Northwest Africa, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today appealed for immediate action from regional countries and international donors in a race against time to prevent a possible full-scale plague of the crop-eating insect by the end of the year.

“Locusts are breeding in thousands of spots over large areas south of the Atlas Mountains stretching from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia to western Libya," the senior officer of the FAO locust group, Clive Elliot, said. "Hoppers are forming bands and are at the last stage before they become adults. Swarms are likely to start forming from the end of this month.”

With winds expected to carry a substantial number of swarms south by mid-June, the agency called on Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal to immediately start preparing and equipping teams for field surveillance and control operations. Resources for sprayers, vehicles, pesticides and training should be mobilized.

Stressing that it had only received a partial response to an emergency appeal launched last month for $17 million to assist countries in eliminating locust infestations and swarms, FAO warned that time is running out.

"If these funds are not made available quickly, it is possible that the whole region will be subjected to a full-scale plague by the end of 2004," Mr. Elliot said. The last desert locust plague, in 1987-1989, took several years and more than $300 million before it was brought to an end.

More than $40 million have been spent since last October on locust control, provided mainly by locust-affected countries. Some 2.1 million hectares have been treated with insecticides since then in Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia.

"Despite intensive control operations on the ground and by air, it is very difficult to find and treat all of the locust infestations in the vast and often remote desert areas," Mr. Elliot said. “Control teams are doing their best, but it is a race against time. In addition to the swarms that move south into the Sahel (sub-Sahara), it is possible that some swarms could move east into western Sudan."