Government fears locust damage to record harvest

Mali is expecting a record grain harvest of more than three million tonnes this year following exceptionally good rains, but the crop could suffer damage from swarms of locusts that have been detected in the desert north of the country, the agriculture ministry said. "The situation became so worrying in October that it provoked concern in northern Mali and throughout the central zone of the Sahara," Agriculture Minister Seydon Traore said in a statement earlier this week. Bernard Maga, a technical adviser to the minister told IRIN that although swarms were forming, they had not yet begun to move south towards the main agricultural areas of this poor landlocked country. "The desert locusts are for the moment gathered in the usual areas where they breed and concentrate. They have not yet invaded other areas," Maga said. The farming areas most at risk where around Kayes and Nara in southwestern Mali, he added. The agriculture minister said two trucks had been dispatched to spray insecticide on the locust breeding areas detected in the north and a third truck was on its way. Officials noted that in the region northeast of Kidal, near the frontier with Algeria, concentrations of up to 900 nearly mature insects per hectare had been detected. The government has predicted that Mali will harvest more than three million tonnes of sorghum, millet, maize and rice in the current 2003/4 crop year, about 20 percent more than the 2.52 million tonnes produced in 2002/3. The government of neighbouring Burkina Faso said on Thursday it was expecting a bumper harvest of 3.65 million tonnes this year. This should give the country a one million tonne food surplus, it added. Burkinabe Agriculture Minister Salif Diallo said this year's grain harvest would be 31 percent higher than the average of the last five years. Following the good rains many areas of the country would more than double their usual output, he added.