Locust swarms raise risk of food crisis: FAO

Bloomberg

The United Nations agency leading the fight against a desert-locust upsurge in East Africa will lodge a new appeal for funding next week, warning the plague could still cause a food crisis.
The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) plans to ask its partners for about $110 million on May 20, according to the agency’s Nairobi-based Resilience Team Leader Cyril Ferrand. Funding needs may increase to $450 million as the FAO prepares to fight swarms seen moving to the Sahel region and Pakistan, according to Ferrand. The agency has so far received an estimated $130 million in payments and pledges.
East African nations from Ethiopia to Kenya, Somalia and Uganda have suffered the worst locust outbreak in at least two decades.
A second wave of the locust swarms, from June when farmers in the region prepare to harvest their crops, puts more people at the risk of losing their livelihoods and worsening food insecurity, the FAO said in a report.
“We may need over two years to tame this enemy,” Ferrand said. “We’re in the middle of the fight.”