Locusts, wild animals threaten harvests

Swarms of locusts are devastating crops in Mozambique’s southern province of Inhambane, as it struggles to recover from floods earlier this year, agricultural authorities were quoted as saying on Tuesday.

Antonio Limbau, head of the local agricultural department, said teams had been deployed with large quantities of pesticides to eliminate locusts that had invaded about 160,000 hectares of land. Limbau described the situation as “critical” and said that the locusts were destroying cassava, a staple in Mozambique. “Now we are involved in a fight to eliminate them. So far we have sent large quantities of pesticides and our team there seems to be getting the situation under control,” he said.