A high-tech response is helping countries win battle against Desert Locusts Format FAO and its partners are creating cutting-edge technology to destroy the pests For the unsuspecting farmer, the Desert Locust is a formidable enemy. These wretched pests have a voracious appetite, multiply rapidly and travel up to 150 kilometers a day with the capacity to devour vast swathes of crops and pastureland on the way. In the past year, waves of the insidious insect swept across East Africa, Yemen and southwest Asia in massive swarms that contained up to 80 million in a single square kilometre. The threat to agriculture and food security has been immense and the challenge to bring them under control, urgent.