Locust outlook improves in northwest Africa, UN update reports

With the desert locust situation continuing to improve in northwest Africa, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported today that a swarm invasion of the region is not expected this spring because breeding failed to occur in northern Mauritania during the winter.

Control operations are also in progress against immature swarms in Algeria and, to a much lesser extent, in Morocco, FAO noted in its latest update, showing more optimism than reports last year that warned of a potentially worse crisis than the last plague of 1987-89.

Limited control operations are in progress against immature swarms in Guinea and southern Senegal. Small-scale breeding is underway in northeast Sudan near the border with Egypt and control operations are treating small but numerous early hopper bands.

No locusts were reported in Mauritania except for a few scattered immature adults in the southeast near the border with Mali, FAO added. Breeding conditions are generally unfavourable except for a few localized areas in the north and centre where light rains have fallen.