Desert locusts feed on cassava plant at Kangurwe village in Nyeri county on February 19, 2020. The county agriculture department said that the insects could not be sprayed due to the high population and the subsistence crops in the farms. Instead, they will monitor the area for 21 days to see if their eggs will hatch in a bid to spray them before they mature Photo/ JOSEPH KANYI

Somalia declares state of emergency over locust invasion

On Feb 6, 2021

Somalia has declared a state of emergency over a locust invasion that is threatening to wipe away crop due for harvest from April.

The country already has about three million people facing food shortage.

Minister for Agriculture and Irrigation, Said Hussein Lid, said the government has identified a large swarm of locusts in the southern federal states of Hirshabelle, South West and Jubbaland.

Somalia is seeking targeted funding and efforts to tame the swarms attacking a region that, according to a situation report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), is already food poor.

The locusts have ravaged most of the Horn of Africa region, and Somalia is the first country in the region to issue a state of emergency.

In Kenya, officials said at least 15 of the 47 counties have been affected since a second wave of locust invasion began in November.

However, unlike Somalia, Kenya has been able to embark on aerial spraying of farms to kill the insects.

The Kenyan Cabinet Secretary for Agriculture, Peter Munya, said 75 different swarms entered Kenya from Somalia and Ethiopia and authorities had dissipated 66 of them in an area of about 19,000 hectares using nine aircraft.

Edited by Olajumoke Adeleke