Desert Locust Upsurge in the Greater Horn of Africa- Press Conference (10 February 2020)

Press Conference by Mark Lowcock, Emergency Relief Coordinator, Dominique Burgeon, Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) Director of Emergencies, and Keith Cressman, FAO Senior Locust Forecasting Officer on Desert Locust Upsurge in the Greater Horn of Africa.


The UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) said of its appeal for 76 million dollars to combat the locust upsurge in the Greater Horn of Africa only 21 million have been received adding that unless this gap is filled in “the coming days and very few weeks” there would be “huge humanitarian needs.”

Speaking to reporters in New York today (10 Feb), FAO’s Director of Emergencies Dominique Burgeon said if the response is not met soon, “we may meet again when we are going to announce a huge increase in the number of people in acute food insecurity; and when we are going to this time ask for the whole package, including massive food assistance. So, big risk; so, we need to raise the flag. We need to make sure that countries respond at scale.”

Burgeon said cyclones in the Indian Ocean brought moisture to the Empty Quarter, an arid area in the Arab Peninsula, which in turn created breeding conditions for the locust that migrated to the Horn of Africa. He said the outbreak happened between two planting seasons, which explains why it didn’t have a great impact on the last season, but the Desert Locusts were breeding in big numbers and would be ready for large scale damage as of March and April. He said efforts need to be made now to go at scale with control operations.

FAO Senior Locust Forecasting Officer Keith Cressman said locusts are the most dangerous migratory pest in the world. He stressed than not taking action in time would have major consequences. He added that favourable conditions in Kenya means that the locusts have laid eggs over a huge portion of the country, which means new swarms are expected to rise in six weeks.

SOUNDBITE (English) Keith Cressman, Senior Locust Forecasting Officer, Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO):
“Just think of a swarm that covers Manhattan from the south up to the north – and this is just a medium size swarm, it’s not really a big swarm for Desert Locust – that swarm in one day can eat the same amount of food as the entire population of Kenya. That swarm in one day can eat the same amount of food as everybody here in the tri-state area – New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York. So, the potential is tremendous, that we should not underestimate by any means.”

Cressman said, with changing winds, it is expected that large swarms from Kenya would reinvade Ethiopia and Somalia, and also enter South Sudan and Sudan. He added that around June, locusts could collect in northeast Somalia and travel using the monsoon rains to southeast Asia.

SOUNDBITE (English) Keith Cressman, Senior Locust Forecasting Officer, Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO):
“You see the interrelation between the Desert Locust and nature. These guys are professional survivors. They have been doing this for eons. They’ve gone through climate change, and they survive very well – probably better than we will. So, the risk is now the Horn of Africa, but by summertime it could conceivably expand to northern Africa and to southwest Asia.”

Cressman underscored that since the problem started a year and a half ago, “there has been an estimated increase of 64 million times the number of locusts.” He added that if the chain causing this upsurge “is not broken somewhere, either by intervention, by control operations, or by a break in the favourable weather, this just keeps going.”

In a briefing to member states earlier today, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock said Somalia and Ethiopia were experiencing the worst locust outbreak in 25 years, while Kenya hasn’t seen this scale of locust infestation in 70 years. He said swarms have crossed into Uganda in the past 24 hours and Tanzania and South Sudan were on the watch list. He said Locust are not limited by national borders making this a regional issue, adding that the infestation was affecting the most vulnerable people in those countries with ten million people in the affected areas already facing food insecurity.

Lowock said he had released ten million dollars from the UN Central Emergency Relief Fund (CERF) as part of FAO’s efforts to deal with the issue. He added, “I’m calling on the countries concerned, the international community, the donors, to step up and to step up now. There is a risk of a catastrophe. Perhaps we can prevent it. We have an obligation to try. Unless we act now, we are unlikely to do so.”