DEVELOPMENT: Red Locusts Bringing New Plague to Southern Africa

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

MBABANE, Apr 19 2002 (IPS) - Like a Biblical plague of old, red locusts announced themselves with an outbreak in Tanzania earlier this year, and a wave of the vegetation-devouring insects is headed southward to endanger crops in nations along the Indian Ocean down to the Cape.

“Precautions will be put in place to minimise damage, and we have the added assistance of new and superior technology, including satellite tracking,” says Peter Forsyt of the International Red Locust Central Organisation for Central and Southern Africa (IRLCO-CSA).

IRLCO-CSA is a non-governmental organisation dedicated exclusively to the hazard posed by this particular insect.

Despite technological improvements that permit the monitoring of swarm movements, agricultural sources say, it remains the poor and out of touch farmers of Africa who stand to lose everything when the insect plague comes their way.

If disaster is to be prevented this year, communications will be as important as insecticides and proper food storage.

“Southern Africa should expect the red locusts to arrive next month and June,” said a statement issued by the Swaziland ministry of agriculture recently.

The winter solstice arrives on June 21 in the southern hemisphere, by which time the crops have been harvested, and vegetation on which the locusts feed is diminished.

Disaster prevention efforts will concentrate on the preservation of food supplies. Particularly vulnerable are the open-air, wire-sided storage bins that small landholder farmers use to keep maize, the staple food for the people of South Africa, Swaziland, Mozambique and other nations in central and southern Africa.

“We are fortunate that the locusts will arrive at the tail end of the harvesting season,” says Swaziland’s agriculture minister Roy Fanourakis. “But as with any infestation, damage will result. How much we cannot predict. But Swaziland has primarily an agriculture-based economy, and 80 percent of the population are engaged in agriculture-related work. Many people stand to be affected.”

The rural populations of Mozambique, Lesotho, South Africa and Zimbabwe also survive on subsistence farming that is threatened by the locusts.

Other countries at risk from the locust invasion are Kenya, Malawi, Uganda and Zambia.

An outbreak of the locusts was first discovered late last year in Tanzania, an IRLOCO-CSA report said. “During surveys conducted in September 2001 in the Malagarasi Basin and the Western areas in Tanzania, large concentrations and swarm-lets of adult red locusts were located.”

The IRLOCO-CSA this week issued a warning to Central and Southern African nations: “In view of the outbreak, the ministries of agriculture in the affected region have issued a regional alert.”

The IRLOCO-CSA or governments of nations in the path of the locust invasion have issued no estimates of potential damage. Sources at Swaziland’s ministry of agriculture suggest the ultimate cost will depend on the success of locust interdiction and eradication programmes.

“All countries have been alerted, and they will report any sightings of locusts as soon as they appear,” says Swaziland agriculture field officer Musa Ndwandwe.

Satellites in geo-stationary positions above the subcontinent may track the movements of particularly large swarms, and can assess the loss of vegetation on the ground.

The age of Internet links via battery-powered computers using satellite connections in remote areas without electricity, and cellular telephones used by agriculture officials in places beyond the land-based telephone grid, also boost chances for swift communication. The path of the red locusts can then be charted, and destinations predicted.

Choices of prevention and eradication tools, such as insecticides, will then be considered, with affected areas turning for advice to IRLOCO-CSA experts.

“Unfortunately, the red locust plague could not have come at a less opportune time, not that such infestations are welcome at any time,” says Ndwandwe. “All of Southern Africa is experiencing a food shortage at the conclusion of what has been a disappointing cropping season.”

Maize prices have doubled in countries where the grain is still available. The partial collapse of agriculture in Zimbabwe due to political conflict in the country has cut into supplies, and boosted prices regionally. A mid-summer drought destroyed 30 percent of the maize crop in South Africa and Swaziland this year.

The Swaziland Senate this week called upon government to subsidise maize prices. Particularly hard hit are the poor, who use a larger percentage of their income for food purchases. A 37 percent drop in the value of the South Africa rand against the U.S. dollar this past year, which has diminished the value of three other national currencies that are linked to the rand, has impacted strongly on food prices, especially scarce maize.

Accordingly, agriculture officials are putting out word to farmers that they must guard their stored maize with particular vigour against the predicted southern migration of the red locust swarm.

“Maize is as valuable as gold in its way this year,” says agriculture field officer Ndwandwe. “What the drought did not get, we must guard against the locusts, or we will have famine of biblical proportions.”