Small-scale locust breeding detected in the Sahel, but no danger seen - FAO

Small-scale locust breeding has begun in some countries of the Sahel, but the semi-arid region will be spared a devastating invasion of crop-eating insects like the one it suffered last year, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Tuesday. FAO said in a statement that isolated groups of adult locusts had appeared in Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Chad, where the rainy season has started and crop planting is in full swing. Small-scale pockets of breeding had been detected in Niger and some was suspected to exist in Chad, the organisation said in its latest Desert Locust Bulletin. Some breeding was also expected to take place in southeastern Mauritania during July, it added. Said Ghaout, a consultant with FAO’s locust control coordination office in Dakar, told IRIN that none of the locust activity detected so far this year posed a major threat to agriculture in West Africa. “That risk has been eliminated,” Ghaout said. “We will not have a catastrophic year like in 2004.” Keith Cressman, a locust forecasting officer at FAO headquarters in Rome, said spraying teams had already treated some locust infected areas areas near Tanout in south-central Niger where there had been small-scale breeding. Cressman said isolated groups of adult locusts had been reported around Tanout and Maradi to the south, but he added: “These are not swarms by any means.” “The situation this summer is nothing like that of last year,” Cressman stressed. “The same level of control will not be needed.” The FAO bulletin noted that only 4,300 hectares of locust infested land were treated in Niger, Chad, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Saudi Arabia last month, compared to 1.6 million hectares treated across Africa and the Middle East in June 2004. West Africa suffered its worst invasion of locusts for 15 years in 2004. Large swarms of the insects, which can eat their own weight of vegetation in a day, stripped bare fields of crops and vast areas of grazing land in Mauritania, northern Senegal, Mali and Niger. However, the locust swarms were decimated by heavy spraying and exceptionally cold weather after they moved to their winter feeding grounds in North Africa in October and November. Cressman said the FAO would watch out for any significant increases in locust numbers in West Africa during the summer breeding period, which normally lasts until the rains stop in late September. He said the organisation had sufficient funds to mount any necessary locust control operations this year, thanks to a US $30 million carryover of donor contributions from the 2004 crisis. Last year's locust invasion coincided with localised severe drought in some parts of the Sahel. That has led to severe food shortages in several countries, particularly landlocked Niger, where the government reckons that 3.6 million people - a quarter of the population - will go hungry this year.