And then the plague of locusts

15 May, 2016 - 00:05 0 Views
And then the plague of locusts An invasion of migratory pests is anticipated next season, due to the adverse weather conditions in the past rain season

The Sunday Mail

Harmony Agere

Few stuck-between-a-rock and-a-hard-place stories are as extraordinary as that of Zimbabwe’s food security situation.

Having experienced one of the worst droughts in its history last summer season, the country, meteorologists recently forecast, is facing the possibility of another disastrous coming season – this time due to floods.

And as if this is not enough, experts forecast that Zimbabwe and other Southern African countries are likely to be hit with migratory crop-eating pests in the 2016-17 season.

“Forecasts show that all migratory pests will be of great concern next year and may affect food security in Southern Africa,” said International Red Locust Control Organisation for Central and Southern Africa’s Moses Okhoba.

Migratory pests can wipe out vast swaths of crop in a short period of time.

Locusts, armyworm and quelea birds are some of the pests anticipated to pose a threat to crops in the 2017 farming season in Zimbabwe and the Sadc region.

The development has been blamed on low rainfall and high temperatures in the 2015-16 farming season.

Resultantly, experts say, these climate conditions created conducive breeding grounds for the crop-eating pests who would thrive in a potentially above-normal 2016-17 rainfall season.

Zimbabwe has no breeding grounds for most crop-eating pests, yet it is anticipated that it will be affected by swarms of red locusts migrating from Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda.

With farmers already affected by two consecutive years of crop under-performance due to a severe El Nino-induced drought, an invasion by the feared red locust or army worm would spell disaster for the country.

Okhoba was also quoted in international media saying the situation in the region was worrying as limited survey and control operations had been undertaken in 2015 and 2016.

“Planned surveys and control operations in outbreak areas have not been undertaken due to lack of resources. Critical is the fact that evaluation of pre-breeding populations in all outbreak areas was not undertaken, thus exposing all member States to food insecurity due to surprise outbreaks.”

If not mitigated, pests invasions can generate into plagues.

According to World Food Programme, more than 800 hectares of cereal grain crops and 300ha of pasture in Zimbabwe were destroyed by outbreaks of army worms in 2014.

Although it has been long since Zimbabwe was affected by locusts’ invasions, research shows that a relatively small swarm of red locusts could have as much as 40 million individual insects during outbreaks.

Furthermore, a red locust can eat its own weight of food in a single day and on average, an adult weighs two grammes.

Therefore, experts submit, a swarm with 40 million individuals will potentially consume an estimated amount of 80 metric tonnes per day. Comparatively, the average daily food intake of a human being is 0,65kg.

By implication, if a small swarm of the size of 40 million red locusts was to feed exclusively on a food crop, it could deprive a total of 123 077 people of food in one day.

This would be devastating considering that about four million people in the country are already food-insecure.

Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union president Mr Wonder Chabikwa urged Government to be on high alert and react quickly to avoid a disaster.

Farmers have blamed Government for failing to react quickly to forecasts.

“It has been long since we had that problem (locust outbreak) but Government should be on the lookout and be prepared to act,” he said.

“Particular attention should be towards the Zambezi Valley because when we had problems with locusts in the past they entered through that part of the country.”

High temperatures, strong winds and floods are some of the climatic conditions linked to pest outbreaks.

It has also been found that they even increase the pressure of migration for pests.

These weather pressures have been described by climate scientists as yet another manifestation of climate change.

The effects of climate change are now being felt more in the Sadc region and about 16 million in the region are food-insecure.

Sadc member states, however, through the Dar-es-Salaam Declaration on agriculture and food security pledged to revitalise national control measures of migratory pests and diseases.

They also resolved to “strengthen surveillance, control, eradication and information sharing on trans-boundary pests and diseases of plants and animals”.

According to Mona Chaya, a senior co-ordinator with Food Chain Crisis Management Framework at Food and Agriculture Organisation, the primary drivers that influence a change in plant pest dynamics are climatic conditions.

The conditions include increases in temperature, variability in rainfall intensity and distribution, change in seasonality, drought, carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere and extreme high rainfall events.

“Other factors such as pest characteristics (eg life cycle, optimal growth conditions, and host interaction) and intrinsic ecosystem characteristics (eg monoculture, biodiversity) will affect these dynamics,” she said.

“This could lead to a greater number of emerging plant pests, which come into contact with new hosts that do not necessarily have an appropriate level of resistance, or are introduced in the absence of naturally occurring biological control agents.

“New more virulent and aggressive strains of plant pathogens are likely to develop as experienced recently on wheat, coffee and cassava.”

FAO, however, says there should not be alarm since migratory pests can be easily controlled if measurers are put in place in time.

Until solid action can be taken, Zimbabweans find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place, a situation aptly illustrated by the cliché, “out of the frying pan and into the fire”.

 

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