...AN AFRICAN PLAGUE
Ndunda Makanga had long been afraid that such a dreadful day might come. Yet the Kenyan farmer cannot believe his eyes as he looks out at the distant horizon and beholds a gigantic cloud moving fast toward his fields. In only a matter of minutes the sky darkens, the air starts to vibrate, and a muffled humming soon drowns out the cries of Makanga and the other residents of his village. Armed with machetes, sheets of cloth, and bottles of water they attempt to avert the impending catastrophe, but their efforts are in vain—no more effective than trying to block a tsunami with an umbrella. Makanga and his fellow farmers don’t stand any chance against the biggest invasion of desert locusts in 70 years. Tens of millions of finger-size insects descend upon their corn, millet, and beans, and within hours the fields— and with them, the livelihoods of the villagers—have been destroyed…
Ndunda Makanga is just one of the thousands of farmers living off the land in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia whose livelihood was threatened or lost in 2020. A relatively small swarm consisting of “only” 80 million locusts is capable of consuming as much food in one day as 35,000 people.
By February of 2020, Kenyan media were reporting a swarm that covered 930 square miles in the north of the country, an area only a little smaller than Rhode Island. This mega swarm consisting of billions of locusts may be the largest one ever recorded in Kenya. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) had to appeal for international help to fight the “unprecedented and devastating” swarms of desert locusts that were
“SWARMS ARE INCREASING IN NUMBERS AND DENSITY AS WE SPEAK. THEY COULD INCREASE 500 TIMES IN NUMBERS BY JUNE.”
A warning from the co-chair of the FAO’S desert locust task force, Daniele Donati, in January 2020
“THE DESERT LOCUST SWARMS ARE OF UNPRECEDENTED SIZE AND DESTRUCTIVE POTENTIAL.”
ravaging Eastern Africa. Much of the region hadn’t suffered an invasion of this magnitude in the past 70 years, and the FAO issued a warning that the number of insects could multiply by a factor of 500 by June. The locust swarms had spread into the region across the Red Sea from Yemen after heavy rainfall in late 2019 created the ideal conditions for them to flourish.
The origin of the 2020 invasion of locusts was along the coasts of the Arabian Sea, where the Indian Ocean Dipole, also known as the Indian Niño, had once again brought with it greater than normal precipitation toward the tail end of 2019, resulting in a large increase in locust reproduction. The swarms that crossed the Red Sea then infiltrated the eastern part of the African continent. Throughout 2020, the FAO issued a new “desert locust brief” every week—something it does just once a month in an ordinary year.
By early 2021 the sense of urgency was declining significantly as locust swarms in Eastern Africa diminished due to a lack of rainfall and ongoing control operations. Then unexpected rains that fell in April and May allowed substantial breeding to occur once more. So while the worst of the latest plague of locusts seems to be over, farmers such as Ndunda Makanga are still waiting for—and dreading— the next invasion.
The enormous swarms of locusts are not just a threat to the existence of farmers. During the 2020 outbreak a Boeing 737 airliner headed from Djibouti to Dire Dawa, Ethiopia, was forced to divert just before landing when clouds of insects invaded its engines and covered its windshield, blinding the pilot. He was able to land safely a half hour later at the capital, Addis Ababa, and the passengers and crew got off with just a bad scare. But the farmers did not fare so well; the swarms, which can’t be diverted or destroyed, consumed nearly all of the teff that the people depend on for most of their daily protein…