IRIN
Horn of Africa: Warning on Potential Locust Swarms
26 March 2007


NAIROBI, 26 March 2007 (IRIN) - The locust infestation developing in the 
Horn of Africa has the potential to cause a serious humanitarian problem 
in Eritrea, northern Somalia and Sudan, the United Nations Food and 
Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned.

Urging the three countries to carefully monitor the situation, FAO said 
a second-generation locust infestation from a December outbreak in 
Eritrea was now concentrating in an area on the Red Sea coast straddling 
the Sudanese-Eritrean border.

"There have been several new developments in the past few days in three 
key areas," FAO said in an update on the crop-devouring insects issued 
on Friday. They were present in pearl millet crops in wadis and in 
natural vegetation on the coastal plains, the agency said.

"Within a week, the majority of these populations will become adults and 
form small immature swarms," the agency warned. "As vegetation is drying 
out on the coast, the swarms are likely to move further north along the 
coast in Sudan as well as west into the Eritrean highlands."

Small bands were also present in the Silil area on the northwest coast 
of Somalia near Djibouti, because of good rainfall and breeding in the 
past few months. "A few small immature swarms have already formed and 
more are expected in the coming weeks," it noted.

The swarms may move in any direction - up the escarpment towards the 
Ethiopian border, northwest towards the Eritrean highlands, east along 
the coast, across the Gulf of Aden to southern Yemen - or simply stay on 
the coast and eventually breed once the long rains commence.

Operations to control the infestation were ongoing, FAO noted, adding 
that this week aerial spraying would start, to try to contain the scale 
of the expected migration.

The locust is a species of short-horned grasshopper that can either form 
part of a swarm of adults or become a wingless nymph (hopper). The 
swarms - which travel up to 130km a day - can measure from one to 
several hundred kilometres in length, posing a serious threat to 
agriculture.

According to the FAO, locusts regularly cross the Red Sea (a distance of 
300km). A swarm can hold up to 80 million locust adults in each square 
kilometre, and is capable of destroying a crop field in seconds. A small 
swarm can eat as much food in a day as 2,500 people.

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