42 Middle East & Africa The EconomistFebruary 1st 2020
“L
et my peoplego, so that they may
worship me. If you refuse to let them
go, I will bring locusts into your country to-
morrow.” So said God, rather vengefully, ac-
cording to Moses and Aaron. But although
the locust infestation wreaking havoc on
east Africa is of biblical proportions, it is
not a portent of end times, said experts at a
press conference in Nairobi this month.
Still, the finger-length bugs spell big trou-
ble for the countries most affected.
It is the worst locust invasion in de-
cades for Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia. One
enormous swarm, recently over north-
eastern Kenya, contains nearly 200bn of
the creatures and occupies a space in the
sky three times the size of New York City.
There are dozens of swarms in Kenya alone.
And the un’s Food and Agriculture Organi-
sation (fao) warns that the number of lo-
custs could increase 500-fold by June,
when it is hoped that drier weather will
check their spread.
The insects eat a lot. A swarm the size of
Paris consumes the same amount of food
in one day as half the population of France.
Crops such as millet, sorghum and maize
are a big part of their diet, making life even
harder for the 12m or so people in Ethiopia,
Kenya and Somalia who are already hungry
(see map). Northern Uganda and South Su-
dan are also at risk; swarms are just 200km
away and moving fast.
Tempting as it may be to blame God,
there are more obvious culprits. The
swarms were first noticed a year and a half
ago in the Arabian peninsula. Last July the
faowarned that they “could migrate from
Yemen in the autumn to the Horn of Africa
and reach Kenya by the end of the year, un-
less urgent preventive and control mea-
sures are established in the region.” They
weren’t. The organisation appealed to rich
countries for funds to contain the bugs. But
little cash arrived.
Soon the locusts had reached Ethiopia,
where some farmers lost their entire crop.
In September the government there asked
the faofor help in raising $2m to control
the pests. By November they were asking
for $6m. Again, little arrived. As the
swarms reached Kenya this month, the un
appealed for $70m to pay for, among other
things, the aerial spraying of insecticide in
east Africa. The cost of containment may
yet prove higher.
Killing the bugs early is vital. Locusts
live for just three to five months, but theymultiplyquickly. In favourable conditions
each generation will be about 20 times larg-
er than the last. Tracking them gets
tougher, too. Swarms can travel 150km in a
day. But they can be managed with surveil-
lance and spraying, particularly if they are
doused when still young and hopping, and
before the population booms. At that stage
spraying from cars or on foot can be rea-
sonably effective.Early action is also cost-effective. The
last big locust crisis, in north-west Africa,
lasted from 2003 to 2005 and caused an es-
timated $2.5bn worth of damage to har-
vests. Getting it under control cost almost
$600m, with donors footing much of the
bill. That is enough to cover preventive
measures in the same region for 170 years,
say experts.
But prevention does not attract much
funding. “This is a Catch-22,” says Keith
Cressman, the Senior Locust Forecasting
Officer at the fao. “Donors are interested in
funding big emergencies, big problems.”
And governments, unlike locusts, move
slowly. In rich countries insurers often
press governments to take preventive ac-
tions. In Africa few farms are insured, so
there is less pressure. Once the swarms
take flight, affected countries often lack
the capacity and expertise to control them.
Preventive measures have also been
hindered by conflict in Yemen and Soma-
lia, where gaining access to some areas for
spraying was deemed too dangerous.
Meanwhile, extreme weather has given the
locusts six legs up. Last year there were
eight cyclones over the northern Indian
Ocean, the most since 1976. These brought
heavy rains to parts of the Arabian Peninsu-
la and Horn of Africa. The resulting vegeta-
tion gave the insects plenty to munch on.
As the planet warms, climate models
suggest that the weather in the Horn of Af-
rica will become less predictable, making it
harder to anticipate locust infestations.
That seems all the more reason to invest in
tracking and control measures, and to
make sure that action is taken quickly. Sev-
eral international organisations are build-
ing systems that trigger the release of aid
from an existing pot when forecasts of
drought, another bane of east Africa, grow
dire. The same could be done to stop lo-
custs before they get off the ground.^7East Africa is reeling from an invasion of pestsLocusts in AfricaSevere swarms
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OCEANDesert locust outbreak
August 2019-January 2020Source: FAO*At Jan 28thNairobi NairobiInfestation Potential spread
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swarms*Foodinsecurity,January 2020Source:USAID,FEWSNETEmergency Crisis
Minimal No dataStressed1,000 kmEast AfricaLet us spray