FAO seeks $9m to control locusts, warns of plague

Desert locusts could reach plague proportions in arid Mauritania this spring, threatening agriculture in much of northwest Africa, unless large-scale spraying is carried out rapidly to destroy the swarms that are forming, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned. "Swarms that are not sprayed will move south in June/July and, if this year's rains are good, a plague affecting the whole of the western region (West and North-West Africa) could follow," FAO said in a statement on Monday. "A rapid reinforcement of control operations is needed now to try to break this cycle of events," it added. The FAO appealed urgently for US$9 million to spray 500,000 hectares northern Mauritania and the Western Sahara and other parts of West Africa, where swarms of locusts have started forming. It is seeking US$ 6 million for control operations in Mauritania and a further US$ 3 million for spraying in Mali, Niger and Chad. All four countries are situated on the southern fringes of the Sahara desert and their population is mainly dependant on agriculture. Half of Mauritania's 2.5 million people raise livestock on the desert fringes and the cultivate grain crops in the far south of the country near the Senegal river. In neighbouring Mali, 70 percent of the country's 12 million population is occupied in agricultural production, according to the Swiss based, Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (www.syngentafoundation.com). FAO said locusts were breeding in larger numbers than usual after exceptionally heavy rainfall last year. Locust swarms can decimate crops and vegetation where ever they land, provoking food shortages and speeding up the process of desertification. The Sahelian countries threatened by locusts at present are among the poorest countries in the world. Food security is a perennial problem. Woodcutting and over-grazing there are already hastening the southward creep of the Sahara Desert. Mauritania has already been working to tackle the locust problem since October 2003, with the assistance of the FAO. Last year, neighbouring Morocco and Algeria supplied land-based spray teams, pesticides and light aircraft to help the Mauritanian government carry out large scale spraying in the north. However, both countries have been forced to withdraw their support in order to protect their own territory from impending attack by locusts, even though large concentrations of locusts persist in several parts of northern Mauritania. FAO said Mauritania did not have the resources to carry on the battle unassisted. "If control operations have to slow down or be interrupted, more locusts added to those already there could contribute to eventually transforming the current situation into a plague," it warned. Locusts are a type of grasshopper that breed rapidly and form swarms whenever heavy rainfall creates ideal breeding conditions. The swarms contain up to 5,000 insects per square metre and can strip an area of vegetation within hours. The swarms are highly mobile and with the wind behind them they can cover up to 700 km in a single night's flight.