Compass World: Remember the Locusts? Well, Things Got Worse.

A locust swarm in Africa. (Flickr)

Almost two months ago, Compass World reported on the locust outbreak spreading across East Africa and parts of South Asia. On the wings of climate change-driven tropical storms, locusts blew into East Africa in the winter. Observers noted at the end of February that the next generation of locusts—just beginning to hatch—could number as many as 20 times their parents’ population. 

From military campaigns to exterminate the pests with chemicals to military campaigns to literally shoot them, countries across the region responded to the crisis in different ways. But, the locusts are still there. And, they got worse.

Seeds of Destruction

Thanks to heavy rains last month, the promised second (20 times as big) swarm of locusts has arrived. Its arrival coincides unfortunately with farmers’ planting season: locusts are already decimating the seedlings of crops planted quite recently.

Thankfully, most swarms are still concentrated in East Africa. None seem to have spread to North or West Africa. Still, East Africa is one of the most food-insecure regions in the world, and a locust outbreak of this magnitude has not hit the region for the past 75 years. That outbreak, 75 years ago, took 15 years to end. Agriculture is a third of East Africa’s GDP and employs more than 65 percent of its population. Letting locusts continue to destroy crops will destroy lives. 

Some countries, like Kenya and Ethiopia, are not doing terribly in their efforts to control the locust epidemic. They have experts who are able to organize and coordinate anti-locust operations. But, global food security experts worry about countries like South Sudan, Uganda, and Somalia, where experts are few and the history of outbreaks had previously been low.

However, it may be hard for East Africa to get the international help it needs. There is another global health crisis to worry about. 

Pestilence & Famine: Two of the Four Horsemen

Predictably, fighting the locust outbreak and the COVID-19 pandemic at the same time is not easy. Thankfully, Africa does not yet face a public health disaster comparable to northern Europe or the United States from COVID-19. 

In Kenya, there are fewer than 300 confirmed cases of COVID-19, and social distancing and mandatory mask protocols have already been imposed. So, the government continues to focus its efforts on dealing with the locusts. But, the rest of the world’s focus on the pandemic has slowed Kenya down, too: virus-related flight restrictions have delayed pesticide deliveries to Kenya. A global production and transportation slowdown could further hamper the effort to fight the locusts. For example, a lockdown in South Africa prevented the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) from securing the helicopters necessary to monitor the locusts. Uganda has also been unable to import enough pesticides.

Two Time Bombs 

Locusts have a life cycle of three months. Back in February, the FAO warned that the size of swarms in June could be almost 500 times larger than swarms in February if enough is not done to stop them. That prediction could come true if the current swarm of locusts (20 times larger than its parents) is allowed to breed again by a factor of more than 20. Summer could be even worse than spring, which is already decidedly worse than winter. So, as the FAO recommends, the locusts need to be stopped now. 

But, the FAO needs more money and supplies to fight the swarms, and those funds and transport networks are both lacking. Its calls for money and help have grown less effective since mid-March, when much of the Western world began shuttering their economies to protect themselves from COVID-19. The Western reaction to the pandemic—shutting down much production and halting global transport networks—has also hamstrung East Africa’s ability to effectively fight the locusts.

Because there is not enough help coming to East Africa, the end of the locust outbreak may not be close at hand. That is bad news because of the other plague. There are fewer than 300 confirmed cases of COVID-19 per country across East Africa, except Djibouti. But, even with the widespread imposition of preemptive measures to protect populations, such a low incidence of infection may not last. Experts are already worried that the region, ill-equipped to handle mass testing and to take in large numbers of patients at hospitals, will be severely hit by the virus in the coming weeks. 

The best case scenario for East Africa is one where it can eliminate the locusts now and fight COVID-19 after. One crisis at a time. But, it looks like both COVID-19 and the locusts will get worse. Seeing how Western countries are currently struggling at controlling just one crisis, it would be fair to say that controlling two crises at the same time will be even tougher.

But, that is what East Africa may have to do in the coming months. In attempting to fight one crisis, much of the world may have doomed East Africa to fight two.