Kenya braces for massive return of locusts

Kenya, a man in a cloud of locusts that invaded his field, near Nanyuki (Laikipia county).

February 2020 REUTERS / Baz Ratner

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2 min

The Horn of Africa is not done with locusts.

New swarms are expected in Ethiopia and Somalia in the coming weeks.

They will then spread to Kenya, warns the FAO, the UN organization for food and agriculture.

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With our correspondent in Nairobi,

The Horn of Africa barely saw the end of the worst locust invasion on record in 70 years than it is already facing a new one.

The billions of

the region this year, devastating tens of thousands of hectares of crops, have reproduced.

A female lays a hundred eggs on her own on average.

They can thus multiply by 20 every three months.

The larvae, which have reached the stage of maturity to take flight, now form these new swarms.

They have already been seen in Yemen and northeast Ethiopia.

By the end of October, they will have invaded eastern Ethiopia and central Somalia.

Then, northern Kenya will be hit again in November.

This new wave is favored by the strong winds from Yemen which spread over the Horn of Africa, carrying these thick dark clouds of billions of billions of locusts.

FAO is sounding the alarm again.

Because the exceptional locust invasion recorded this year has already destroyed thousands of hectares of crops and pastures in the Horn of Africa, causing a dramatic food crisis.

The heat combined with heavy rains at the end of 2019 until February 2020 explain this phenomenon.

There is only one solution to overcome it: spraying insecticides.

Air and ground operations, already underway for several months, are continuing.

Read on The Conversation: Desert Locust Invasion, The Old Nightmare Is Back

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