Campaign Begins to End Locust Plague

September 26, 2013

Betroka Region, Southern Madagascar - A dense swarm of locusts as seen during spraying operations, May 29, 2011. ©FAO/Yasuyoshi Chiba

More than a year after a locust plague was declared in Madagascar, a control program finally is about to begin. Massive swarms of the insects have damaged or destroyed large areas of cropland and pastures.

Aerial and ground surveys are underway in Madagascar to map the locations of the Malagasy migratory locust swarms.

Annie Monard, locust response coordinator for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, currently is in Madagascar. Monard was among those who sounded the alarm over a year ago.

“It is a plague – no doubt concerning that. It’s a plague because numerous locust swarms escaped the outbreak area. The declaration of plague was made in April 2012.”

Despite the announcement of a locust emergency, the response was slow to develop. That allowed the swarms to spread even further from the southwest where they’re endemic.

The problem began several years earlier when the last control program – funded by the African Development Bank – ended. The FAO launched emergency campaigns in 2010, 2011 and 2012, but they were not enough to stop the locust plague from developing.

“What we did and what FAO does for many, many years is always to promote what we call preventive control strategy. Unfortunately, there are always some situations during which it is not possible to apply the preventive strategy; and progressively the locust situation deteriorated, arising at the level we have now,” she said.