African states plan locust battle

Ministers from nine African countries are meeting to decide a plan of
action as millions of locusts loom over the region, poised to annihilate
its crops.

The ministers will review national strategies at a conference in Algeria,
before drawing up a region-wide plan.

The worst locust plague in 15 years has spread from Morocco to Niger, Mali,
Mauritania and Senegal, the UN says.

The insects can devour within a day food that would feed thousands of
people and hundreds of livestock.


The meeting in Algiers brings together agriculture ministers from countries
already battling the locust plague and from states where the threat is
drawing closer - Chad, Libya, and Tunisia.

Officials from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) are also
present and have appealed for more international aid.

An estimated $83m are needed to curb the plague, Mahmoud Solh, the head of
FAO's vegetable production agency, told AFP news agency.

The FAO's Director-General, Joseph Tchikaya, said aid contributions offered
so far "remain below our hopes and cannot at present cover needs".

Spraying programmes

The insect swarms have already affected over 6.5m hectares (16m acres) of
farmland in north-western Africa and the Sahel region.

However the UN said measures to control the spread of locusts appear to
have had some success in the area.

Swarms had yet to be reported in Chad or Sudan's Darfur region, though the
risk of them arriving remained high.

But, the UN says, heavy seasonal rains in the Sahel region have increased
the danger that locust numbers will continue to rise in west Africa.

The FAO issued its first warning of a coming locust plague in February,
when unusually high rates of breeding were detected south of the Atlas
Mountains in Morocco and Algeria.

Major insecticide-spraying programmes were set up, some funded by western
donors.

Locusts can eat their own weight in food every day, which means a single
swarm can consume as much food as several thousand people.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/3930617.stm

Published: 2004/07/27 16:23:30 GMT

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