The emergence of swarms of newly-hatched desert locusts in the Horn and East Africa has deepened the threat to food security brought on by the pandemic. The floods and landslides wreaking havoc in the continuing heavy rains across the region have only added an already dire situation making it a third crisis to grapple with. To paraphrase a widely shared tweet, the new locust outbreak and the floods are twin-crises within the Covid-19 crisis that’s putting the food security and livelihoods of millions of people at risk. The Food and Agricultural Organisation estimates 20.2 million people are now facing severe acute food insecurity in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania. It adds that, with the main season already in progress in some parts and coming up in others, the locust invasion threatens to drive this figure even higher. Locusts are the world’s most destructive migratory pest. They can travel up to 150 kilometres a day and form 80 million-strong swarms and eat the same amount in vegetation as what large cities eat every day. The swarms could cause up to 100 per cent crop losses in some locations, according to the Food Security and Nutrition Working Group. This is in addition to the vegetation livestock feeds on, risking the loss of animals denying farmers income including from crops. Projections for regions around the world — Africa, the Middle East, and southwest Asia —suggest that if the desert locust upsurge isn’t controlled, they could more than double their range and invade up to 60 countries on three continents from the current 30. This means that countries like Rwanda and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo which are further into the hinterland but bordering Uganda and Tanzania might not escape the swarms. The heavy rains leading to the floods will perhaps end this month according to weather forecasts, but more locust eggs are hatching and forming hopper bands that are projected to forms new swarms towards late June and July. It had been feared the ongoing measures to prevent the spread of the virus in many countries might obstruct the ability to respond to the locust crisis. Governments in the most affected countries in the region are however on top of it. They are prioritising locust-control operations and are exempting them from COVID-19 lockdown and movement restrictions so critical workers can continue surveying and treating locust infestations. I’ve been looking up to see how technology is being used to address the locust problem and found that the type of disease surveillance being used to limit COVID-19 infections in the region can also be an effective way to anticipate and target impending locust outbreaks. NASA scientists are already working on an approach that uses satellite imagery to identify locust breeding sites that can be eliminated before the insects hatch and spread. As explained on the media platform for the global development community, Devex, NASA scientists are already working on an approach that uses satellite imagery to identify locust breeding sites that can be eliminated before the insects hatch and spread. Locusts lay their eggs in warm, moist, sandy soil. Until now the best available tools for tracking and forecasting locust movement relied on rainfall as a proxy for soil moisture to predict where they might breed in large numbers. The science of how this tool is being used is fascinating. In an initiative known as SERVIR, NASA is helping integrate high-resolution soil moisture data from land surface modelling, which can estimate soil moisture at egg-laying depth, into maps with much more detail on soil type. Combining locust observations with soil type and moisture data can help identify optimal areas for egg-laying and target control measures early. It is acknowledged the emerging swarms are likely to cause widespread crop losses and damages to livestock assets, deepening already serious levels of food insecurity across the Horn and East Africa. Implementing this technology will enable ongoing efforts to respond more efficiently now and avoid locust and other pest crises in the future. The views expressed in this article are of the author.
