Donors are belatedly coughing up cash to combat locusts in West Africa, but agricultural experts warned on Monday that it would take two or three years to reduce the number of insects to the point where they no longer presented a significant threat to agriculture.
Officials of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said nearly 40 crop-spraying planes had been deployed to kill the swarms of locusts that have invaded Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Niger and Chad since the month of June.
These aircraft and dozens of ground-based control teams are fighting to save the annual harvest which is under way throughout the region and is expected to finish by the end of November.
According to preliminary estimates, the locusts could destroy up to a quarter of the crops in these countries.
FAO officials and the representatives of European donors admitted on Monday that not enough had been done to control the largest locust invasion to strike West Africa in 15 years.
They said the swarms were already moving back to their winter breeding grounds in North Africa and a fresh control locust control campaign would be required over the winter and spring to reduce their numbers in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. Even then, they warned, large numbers of the insects were still expected to head south to the Sahel again next summer.
"The current interventions will allow us to reduce numbers, but to be able to totally break the locust cycle at least two intensive campaigns in the Sahel and Maghreb countries will be necessary," said Said Ghaout, the director of Morocco's locust control centre, who is currently helping FAO operations in Senegal.
"This is not the end of the story," agreed Edouard Tapsoba, the FAO representative in Senegal.
"The situation will likely last for two or three years," he told reporters. (Albawaba.com)
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