Is Gambia really ready for this approaching destruction?  We read in the
papers for the past month about Government's strategy against an impending
locust invasion, how prepared are they really?  If Senegal, Mali,
Mauritania, Niger, etc. are being over powered by this plague, what has
Gambia in its defense arsenal?  As usual, the government is embarked on big
talk and promises with nothing to show for.  If our farmers are going to
rely on government, then we are yet again in big trouble should the swarms
reach us.  Going by the record of these do nothing bunch, they are just
blowing hot air and will produce zilch when the hour arrives.  Another
tendency we exhibit always, is do nothing and spend most of our time hoping
that the plague will stop in Senegal; or most of the insects will die before
they reach us; or divine intervention will save us, a perfect recipe for the
charlatans with rosary beads to feed off the fears of our embattled farming
community.  With the destruction in Senegal, Gambia should have volunteered
to join Senegal in their fight against the locust, in Senegal.  This was
what ever trickles our way we can deal with effectively.  But no, we are
just sitting pretty, just like Senegal, Mali, and Niger did watching the
destruction in Mauritania, only to receive the same visitors days later.  If
the reports project that these insects can travel 100km per day, we must be
nuts to think that we have time.

Nothing works in that country but corruption and mediocrity.  The fact is
this government has bled us dry and now has left the burden of our dead
weight economy on your and my remittances and the NGOs.  Thus, all you read
about is this and that NGO joining the fight against the locust.

Chi Jaama

Joe


>From: Amadu Kabir Njie <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Fw: Senegal: Locusts Eat Houses As Well As Crops And Pasture
>Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 15:57:59 +0200
>
>Senegal: Locusts Eat Houses As Well As Crops And Pasture
>
>UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
>NEWS
>September 15, 2004
>Posted to the web September 15, 2004
>Teneye
>
>In the far north of Senegal, swarms of voracious locust larvae are not just
>devouring crops and pasture. They are also munching their way through the
>straw huts of local farmers.
>
>"Look at my house, it is infested with larvae," said Abdoulaye Diop, a
>farmer in the tiny village of Teneye, close to the Mauritanian border.
>Thousands of the black insects were crawling up its flimsy walls.
>
>Outside, they had already finished off most of Diop's 12 hectares of maize,
>cassava and potatoes. The flightless larvae advanced like a slow-moving
>tide of relentless destruction, stripping one row of plants of its leaves
>after another.
>
>The sandy ground around Teneye was littered with dead locust larvae.
>
>These insects had hatched from eggs laid by swarms of mature yellow locusts
>which descended on the village during August. However, the inhabitants of
>Teneye had managed to kill the larvae by dusting them with sacks of
>insecticide powder handed out by the Ministry of Agriculture.
>
>Diop said the problem was that the 25 sacks of powder were now exhausted,
>but the locusts still kept on coming.
>
>He had therefore travelled to seek further help from the locust control
>centre at Richard Toll, a town in the Senegal river valley, 20 km away.
>
>Mbaye Thiam, an agriculture ministry official drafted into the military-led
>anti-locust campaign had come back with him to Teneye to assess the
>situation.
>
>"Third and fourth stage larvae", he said laconically. "We see this every
>single day."
>
>Locust larvae are easier to treat than winged adults
>
>The larvae go through five stages of growth between hatching from an egg
>and growing wings to become a fully-fledged locust three weeks later. Stage
>five is the final period when they are at their most destructive.
>
>The flightless locust larvae form highly destructive hopper bands that
>achieve concentrations of up to 10,000 insects per square metre.
>
>The hopper bands do a lot of damage. But they are much easier to kill than
>the swarms of fully fledged flying locusts which can move over 100 km per
>day.
>
>The problem is that as West Africa suffers its worst locust invasion for 15
>years, there is not enough insecticide to go round and there are not enough
>spraying teams to reach each hopper band before it takes to the air to join
>a new swarm of mature locusts.
>
>Each insect weighs up to two grammes and can eat its own weight in
>vegetation every day. And since the swarms often number several hundred
>million insects, their destructive power is awesome.
>
>Agriculture Ministry officials in Richard Toll said they only had enough
>teams and enough insecticide to treat the very worst cases of infestation
>and could not meet all the demands placed upon them.
>
>But that is little consolation for the farmers of Teneye and dozens of
>other villages in the semi-arid region, who face famine unless they can
>harvest a decent crop of food at the end of the current rainy season.
>
>"We live from our crops, and when we are deprived from them, it is hunger
>which awaits us," Diop said in a worried tone.
>
>Within five minutes, Thiam had seen more than enough of the situation at
>Teneye and headed back to base, saying his department would do its utmost
>to help the villagers.
>
>Driving back to Richard Toll in the company of a visiting IRIN
>correspondent, he saw even more hopper bands stripping cassava fields bare
>of their greenery. Sometimes the rippling bands of black insects covered
>the dirt road ahead and Thiam's four-wheel drive vehicle scrunched
>thousands of them under its tyres as it passed.
>
>Poor communications hinder control work
>
>But Thiam was unable to tell the prospection and spraying teams immediately
>where to find them.
>
>"The teams on the ground have no radios, which are fundamental in the fight
>against locusts," he complained. They are obliged to use public phones. As
>for me, I use my private cell phone, but I have to wait till the evening to
>inform my colleagues of what I have seen."
>
>Back in Richard Toll, a town set amidst plantations of rice and sugar cane
>in the Senegal river valley, several delegations of worried farmers from
>outlying villages were queuing up at the locust control centre to report
>new infestations and plead for government assistance.
>
>The town is one of seven bases in Senegal from which Agriculture Ministry
>officials, helped by thousands of soldiers and firemen and control teams
>sent from Morocco, Algeria and Libya, are trying to win the war against
>locusts.
>
>But they are fighting against heavy odds.
>
>In the tatty Agriculture Ministry compound at Richard Toll, Paul Diouf, the
>Director of the local plant protection unit, said he was overwhelmed.
>
>"With the locust invasion, we work from early morning to late night. We
>work on Saturdays and Sundays," Diouf said.
>
>The Richard Toll base is in charge of plant protection in the regions of
>Saint Louis and Louga, in the northwest of Senegal, which have been invaded
>by locusts since early July.
>
>Its staff has been bolstered by a team of 25 soldiers and a detachment of
>firemen. But between them they only have three four-wheel drive vehicles,
>16 motorised pumps worn as back-packs and one crop-spraying aircraft, which
>is on loan from the local sugar company.
>
>Another crop dusting aircraft sent from Morocco is due to arrive shortly.
>
>"In 15 years of fighting locusts, I have never seen anything like this!"
>Hassamiou Sanghott, the deputy director of the base told IRIN. "In 1988,
>the invasion was restricted to the regions of Saint Louis, Linguere and
>Bakel, but this year seven of the regions out of eleven regions in the
>country have been affected! "
>
>The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported
>last week that 300,000 hectares of farmland had been invaded by locusts in
>Senegal, but only a third of that area had been treated. A total of 750,000
>hectares in Senegal would have to be sprayed in the near future, it added.
>
>In Mauritania, which borders Senegal to the north, the situation is even
>worse. An estimated 1.6 million hectares of land there have been invaded by
>locusts, prompting government officials to warn of famine unless food aid
>arrives quickly.
>
>Mali and Niger are also badly affected.
>
>Equipment and insecticide shortages lead to slow response
>
>In northern Senegal, where it sometimes takes locust control teams a week
>or more to respond to appeals for assistance, some farmers have already
>abandoned their fields after suffering total crop destruction.
>
>"We cannot be everywhere at the same time given the magnitude of the
>infestation," Diouf said. He stressed that his men were short of everything
>from pesticides and radios to vehicles and fuel.
>
>He complained that even his lone plane, which can spray up to 4,800
>hectares per day, had been sent to Podor, a town 100 km further east, where
>the scale of infestation was even worse.
>
>"We have to give priority to areas such as Podor where the larvae have
>reached stage five, meaning they will achieve maturity in about 20 days and
>mate to produce a new generation of insects by mid-October," Diouf said.
>
>Some farmers who have no access to insecticide have resorted to digging
>trenches and sweeping the hopper bands into them to bury the insects alive
>before they eat all the plants in their fields.
>
>But still the larvae continue their relentless advance, destroying houses
>and polluting wells when there is no more greenery left to feed on.
>
>"Yesterday, in the villages of Niassante and Mbellon, 50 km from here, the
>prospection teams noted that fields had been abandoned," Diouf said.
>
>"In the village of Belynamary, about 60 km from here, masses of locusts
>fell into the well polluting it and forcing the villagers to go and fetch
>water elsewhere," he added. "In some places, people complained that the
>locusts had started eating their houses."
>
>As Diouf spoke, his phone rang continuously and one delegation of worried
>villagers after another trouped into his tiny office to report new
>instances of crop damage and request government help.
>
>"Only pesticides can help us save the crops"
>
>Hamedine Kane said he had travelled 50 km over dirt roads by bus from his
>remote village of Sare Lamou to Richard Toll to request help.
>
>"Larvae are everywhere, on the crops, on the pasture, even in our houses",
>the peasant farmer told Diouf in desperate tones. "In every field they
>visited, they ate everything they found, even the grass".
>
>"We have dug trenches to bury them, used sticks to drive them away, but
>they are so numerous that it makes no difference. Only pesticides can help
>us save the crops that have not been attacked yet", he added.
>
>Diouf took note of Kane's grievances, assuring him that a team would visit
>his village as soon as possible.
>
>But privately, he admitted that it would probably be a week before he could
>spray the area, and only then if the crop-dusting plane promised by Morocco
>arrived on time.
>
>As soon as Kane left, delegations from three other villages entered Diouf's
>office, pleading for help.
>
>Souleymane Diao, from the village of Thiago, 11 km from Richard Toll, said
>a swarm of mature yellow locusts had descended on his three hectares of
>watermelons the day beforehand, destroying the crop completely.
>
>"I had spent 90,000 CFA francs ($170) on seeds and weed control and I was
>expecting to sell the crop for 4.3 million CFA ($8,000) by the month of
>November. But they ate everything. Now I have to buy more seeds and
>fertilizer if I am to get anything at all by Mid-December," he told IRIN.
>
>The tragedy is that locusts are destroying what would otherwise have been a
>bumper crop this year.
>
>The rains, which began in some parts of the Sahel in June, have been
>plentiful and well distributed for the second year running.
>
>Locusts could destroy 25 percent of Sahel crops
>
>Agricultural experts of the Inter-state Committee to Fight Drought in the
>Sahel (CILSS) meeting in Dakar last week said the organisation's nine
>member states should normally have expected a grain crop of 11 to 14
>million tonnes, following last year's record harvest of 14.3 million.
>
>But they warned that the locust invasion could cut output across the region
>by up to 25 percent, dashing hopes of a food surplus and raising fears of
>localised severe shortages.
>
>President Abdoulaye Wade has estimated that locusts could cause up to
>US$500 million of damage to agricultural production in Senegal this year.
>
>The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has appealed for US$100
>million of aid to bring the locust plague under control.
>
>But while Senegalese farmers clamour for more insecticide powder to dust on
>the insects themselves, FAO officials are reluctant to give it to them,
>because of the dangerous levels of toxic chemicals it leaves in the soil in
>local water supplies.
>
>They point out that it requires 12 kg of insecticide powder to treat one
>hectare, but only one litre of liquid insecticide sprayed from a plane or
>by ground teams using motorised pumps.
>
>
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>Copyright © 2004 UN Integrated Regional Information Networks. All rights
>reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
>
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