Morocco sends planes to spray locusts in Cape Verde islands

Morocco has sent two crop-spraying aircraft and 10,000 litres of pesticide to boost locust control efforts in the arid Cape Verde Islands off the coast of West Africa. Cape Verde, 450 km west of Senegal, suffered its first invasion of locusts from the mainland in August. A second wave of larger swarms began arriving in late September and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said they had begun breeding on the archipelago of arid volcanic islands. Even in a good year, Cape Verde only manages to produce a fraction of the food needed to supply its 350,000 inhabitants. However, the government warned recently that shortages would be aggravated during the year ahead by a combination of poor rainfall during the wet season that has just ended and locust damage to the crops now being harvested. The islands worst affected at present are Sal, a flat desert island where Cape Verde's main international airport is situated, Sao Nicolau, a small nearby island, and Santo Antao, a mountainous island cut by deep ravines, which accounts for much of the country's agricultural output. Agriculture Ministry officials said control teams managed to deal effectively with the first wave of locusts to hit Cape Verde in August before they could cause much damage, but the second wave had persuaded the government to issue an appeal for international assistance to which Morocco had responded. They said the Moroccan planes arrived in Sal on Thursday and were expected to start spraying several valleys in Santo Antao shortly. About 30 percent of crops on the island had been damaged by locusts and 110 hectares of land was infested with the insects, they added. The locust swarms which invaded the Sahel this summer have now begun moving northwards to their winter feeding and breeding grounds in North Africa. Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya have been in the forefront of international efforts to control the crop-destroying insects in their poorer neighbours on the southern fringes of the Sahara, knowing full well that if the insects are not brought under control there they will bring misery to their own farmers during the months ahead