By Nuru Ahmed
Kenya’s efforts to battle the desert locusts is likely to stall due to insufficient funds to sustain the exercise. The country urgently needs USD 8 million to continue battling the second wave of desert locusts invasion reported in November 2020.
Hamisi Williams, the Deputy Country Director for Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) expressed his fears that if more funds are not urgently disbursed, the aerial spraying might stop by the end of March.
Mr Williams said FAO had requested for USD8 million from the donors to help combat the locust menace but so far it has only received USD2 million.
“We anticipate that the current funds can only sustain aerial services up to the end of March after which we would require more money to continue with the exercise,” said Mr Williams.
Mr Williams, however, said other methods of controlling these pests such as ground spraying by use of hand held pumps and car mounted sprayers will continue.
The Government of Kenya allocated Sh1.9 billion for fighting against locusts in the recently released supplementary budget. It also established eight control bases in Isiolo, Marsabit, Masinga, Garissa, Turkana (Lodwar), Mandera, Lamu (Witu) and Taita Taveta to coordinate desert locust management operations.
The new wave of the desert locust invasion currently destroying crops and pastures in northern Kenya threatens to spiral out of control, having spread to 17 counties in the country. Just to mention areas such as Mandera, Wajir, Garissa, Marsabit, Samburu, Isiolo, Meru, Tharaka Nithi, Tana River, Kilifi, Kitui, Machakos, Laikipia, Nakuru and Nyandarua counties have been invaded by the swarms.
The FAO Country Representative said there are immature swarms in northern and central counties, and in Kilifi County in upper Coast region. There are a few small immature swarms formed from previous breeding in the Coast region near Lamu and probably in adjacent areas of southern Somalia.
Mr Williams regretted that many swarms are highly mobile and the same swarm can be sighted several times. He noted that some were spotted in parts of the Rift Valley region, the country’s bread basket.
“The swarms of locusts now threaten the livelihoods of millions of people in Kenya as the conflicts in Yemen, Somalia and northern Ethiopia make it difficult for FAO to control the breeding and movement of the pests at the source,”Mr Williams lamented.
FAO Representative attributed the upsurge of locusts to favourable breeding grounds in the three countries where conflicts seems to persist. For instance, control measures including aerial spraying and mapping out breeding areas have been hampered by the fighting in Yemen, the largest breeding grounds of desert locusts.
“We have a second wave of desert locust just of the favourable breeding weather conditions in Ethiopia and Somalia,” FAO Representative in Kenya said. In fact, Yemen seems to be the gateway to the Horn of Africa because it is where the southerly winds begin to blow hence locusts cross over the Red Sea to the Horn of Africa,” Mr Williams emphasized.
He said the swarms can fly up to 150 kilometres a day with the wind. Surprisingly, a single square kilometre swarm can eat as much food in a day as 35,000 people may.
According to Hamadi Boga, Principal Secretary in Department for Agriculture Research of Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation in Kenya said intense ground and aerial control operations are in progress. This is to reduce current swarm populations so that the scale of the upcoming breeding may be lower.
Prof Boga said while control operations are underway, surveys are being conducted to flash out any swarms that could be breeding in northern Kenya.
“In the Horn of Africa, immature swarms continue to migrate southwards from breeding areas in eastern Ethiopia and central Somalia to southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya,” Prof Boga noted.
In Ethiopia, immature swarms are concentrating along the eastern side of the Harar Highlands in Oromia region as they move to southern areas of the country, including southern parts of the Rift Valley. There are also cross-border movements near Jijiga and northwest Somalia and along the southern border with Kenya.
According to FAO, by January 8, 2021 a few immature swarms were reported in Mwanga district in northeast Tanzania.
Additional reporting by Henry Owino
