Sahel could lose 25 percent of harvest to locusts - CILSS

Good rainfall should give the semi-arid countries of the Sahel region of West Africa a bumper harvest for the second year in a row, but up to a quarter of the 2004 crop could be eaten by locusts, the Inter-state Committee to Fight Drought in the Sahel (CILSS) has warned. Following a three-day meeting of agricultural experts from the organisation's nine member states in Dakar, CILSS said in a statement on Thursday night that Mauritania, Senegal, Mali and Niger where the countries which risked the heaviest locust damage to this year's grain harvest, which will take place in October and November. However, CILSS said the overall food security situation in the Sahel was presently good following a bumper grain harvest of 14.3 million tonnes in the region last year. "The average price of millet in August 2004 was lower than during the same period of 2003 and lower than the average for the past five years in most markets. As a result, access to grain supplies for most consumers is still easy," it said. CILSS estimated that if the good and well distributed rainfall observed during July and August continued until the end of September, the Sahel could expect another bumper grain crop of 14 million tonnes this year. But if rainfall fell below normal during September, production could fall as low as 11 million tonnes, it added. CILSS stressed that these estimates did not take into account possible damage by locust swarms which have swept into the Sahel from North Africa since June and which are now breeding in Mauritania, Senegal, Mali and Niger. "The invasion of desert locusts has given rise to great uncertainty over the real level of production that can be expected," the organisation stressed. It added that losses would be "very variable from one country to another, depending on the degree of infestation and where exactly the infestations take place." However, CILSS concluded: "The maximum losses likely in a scenario where the desert locust situation is not brought under control are estimated at 25 percent of the overall production in the region." Some countries are already bracing themselves for a food emergency. Mauritania, which suffers from a chronic food deficit, is the country worst affected by locusts so far and has so far done little to stop them. The government's director of food security, Mohamed Ould Zeine, has already warned that the mainly desert country of 2.8 million people will face "a major food crisis" this year. He told IRIN on Thursday on the sidelines of the CILSS conference, that hunger could set in as early as November. President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, has meanwhile estimated that locusts could cause up to US$500 million of damage to agricultural production in Senegal this year, endangering the country's strong 6.5 percent economic growth rate. "If we fail to stop them we will lose half a billion dollars," he told the state news agency Agence de Presse Senegalaise. "Where could we find that sort of money?" Wade, who has called in the army to lead the fight against the invasion of locusts, has urged donors to provide equipment and pesticides to fight the insect plague rather than cash. Already, Morocco, Algeria and Libya have sent spraying teams equipped with four-wheel drive trucks and crop-spraying aircraft to help kill the locust swarms in Senegal, a mainly agricultural country of 10 million people. The locust invasion of West Africa is the worst seen for 15 years. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates it would cost $100 million to bring the situation under control. Just over a third of this sum has so far been pledged by donors. The member countries of Niamey-based CILSS are Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad and the Cape Verde Islands. CILSS said despite a late start to the rainy season in some countries of the region, all except Cape Verde had received ample and well distributed rainfall during July and August. "Apart from the locust threat, the general outlook for this year's harvest is one of the best the Sahel has ever known," it said.