East Africa deploys huge volumes of ‘highly hazardous’ pesticides
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against locust plague
SWARMS of locusts tens of kilometers wide have threatened to devastate crops in East Africa since late 2019, putting some 32 million people at risk of going hungry.
By Leopold Salzenstein
The desert locust infestation, described by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 2020 as a “scourge of biblical proportions,” is the worst the region has seen in decades, according to humanitarian groups. In Ethiopia, the triple threat of locusts, floods and Covid-19 threatened to tip the region into a humanitarian crisis.
To combat the emergency, governments have resorted to spraying large tracts of land with some 2 million liters of insecticides over almost 2 million hectares (5 million acres), since the beginning of the outbreak in December 2019, prompting concerns over the potential health and environmental impacts.
East Africa deploys huge volumes of ‘highly hazardous’ pesticides against locust plague
by Leopold Salzenstein on 1 April 2021
More than 95% of pesticides now being used in East Africa to fight locust swarms are scientifically proven to cause harm to humans and other organisms such as birds and fish.
Half of the anti-locust pesticides delivered in East Africa since the beginning of the infestation in late 2019 contain chlorpyrifos, a pesticide linked to brain damage in children and fetuses, which is banned in the EU.
Experts including a former FAO official concede the pesticides being used “are not pleasant things,” but say the lack of safer alternatives and the intensity of the locust plague leave them with little choice.