Regional locust warnings a reality in Niger

Pockets of land in the north of Niger are already infested with locust swarms that will destroy crops if allowed to spread to the agricultural south of the country, government officials told IRIN on Thursday. “If effective measures are not taken, we could have migrations of locusts into the south of the country and this would be a threat to the agricultural regions,” said the government official Moudy Mamane Sani, director for the protection of vegetables based in the capital Niamey. Between 700 and 2,500 hectares of land have already been infested by locusts in the north, according to the Regional Centre of Agro-Meteorology (AGRHYMEY). AGRHYMEY is linked to regional group, the inter-state committee against desertification, (CILSS), which has reported that the gathering locusts swarms are breeding around pockets of vegetation in the arid north. More than 85% of Niger’s 10 million inhabitants depend on agriculture for their livelihood. However two thirds of the country is desert and farming is concentrated in the wetter central and particularly southern regions. Containment has begun to prevent the swarms, installed in the mountainous central Air region, from thriving. Officials said they expected more technical support and chemical products from Morocco and other donor agencies. Crops have already been sown in southern Niger. If locusts strike, that crop would be decimated, threatening Niger’s fragile food security. "If climatic conditions degrade in the north of Algeria and in Morocco, there is a strong possibility that the swarms will spread into Niger," said Sani. Niger is a poor, landlocked West African nation, situated on the southern fringes of the Sahara desert. The population - like in Mali, Mauritania, Morocco and Algeria, which are also under threat - is heavily dependant on agriculture. Thanks to the help coming from all parts of the country and Algeria, some 10,000 hectares had been sprayed by mid-March to destroy the swarms that are forming. But the resources were not enough to carry on the battle unassisted and Niger asked for the international community to bring more urgent assistance, Sani said. Locusts are a type of grasshopper that breed rapidly and form swarms whenever rainfall creates ideal breeding conditions. Swarms can strip an area of vegetation within hours. The last locust invasion dates from 1988 when one million hectares of land were under a six-month chemical treatment, between May and October. The Food and Agriculture Organisation, (FAO) issued a regional locust warning on 25 May. "An upsurge is under way in the region," the UN agency said and warned that tackling the problem was now a “race against time.”