The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) has handed over a spray aircraft to the Desert Locust Control Organisation for Eastern Africa (DLCO-EA) to combat the desert locust and other migratory pests in the region.
This follows the most widespread desert locust upsurge in East Africa in more than 70 years, which lasted from 2019 to 2021. The aircraft was procured with financial support from the governments of Denmark, the United States of America and the MasterCard Foundation.
The handover ceremony took place in Nairobi, Kenya, this week and was attended by key stakeholders, including ministers for agriculture from Kenya, Uganda and Somalia, resource partners, and civil society organisations.
Protecting food security
FAO subregional coordinator for Eastern Africa, Chimimba David Phiri, emphasised the critical role of building DLCO-EA’s capacity to enable it to better fulfil its core mandate of pest and vector management towards protecting food security.
“Given the fragility of the food security situation in the region, it is critical to building DLCO’s capabilities to respond effectively to future infestations of desert locusts and other migratory pests,” he said.
Kenya’s cabinet secretary for agriculture and livestock development, Mithika Linturi, highlighted the importance of the aircraft in combatting migratory pests such as desert locusts, Quelea birds, and the fall armyworm. “I would like to appreciate the role of FAO in the successful control of desert locusts in Kenya and the region. The new aircraft handed over today will greatly help the operations of DLCO-EA in the region,” he added.
The DLCO-EA governing council chairperson, Ahmed Madoobe Nuunow, thanked FAO and DLCO-EA for their efforts in controlling the desert locust infestation.
He called on member states to honour their financial contribution to the institution and hoped that member states and development partners would continue supporting DLCO-EA to improve its capacity to respond to possible future infestations of desert locusts and other migratory pests.
Infestation impact
The infestation caused widespread destruction of crops and pastureland, leading to food insecurity in the East African region. The response managed to treat over 2 million hectares of infested land and averted crop losses of over 4 million metric tonnes, with a market value of $800 million.
FAO and its partners mobilised $231 million to respond to the desert locust upsurge in the Greater Horn of Africa and Yemen, protecting close to 42 million people from food insecurity and preventing the loss of 4.6 million metric tons of cereals and 900 million litres of milk across the subregion.
The current situation in 2023 is calm, with scattered hoppers and adults present in the southern Western Sahara of Morocco, hoppers and adults present on the Red Sea coast of Sudan, and low numbers of adults present on the coast of Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Eritrea, and northwest Somalia.
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