While East Africa suffers from devastating rain and COVID-19 pandemic, it is also expecting a third wave of desert locusts.
According to a survey conducted in June, Somalia is amongst the most affected countries. In the two prior locust waves nearly 1.3 million hectares of grazing land, 200,000 hectares of crops, and 350,000 tonnes of cereals have been destroyed.
In a single day, a single locust can consume food equivalent to its body weight. This way, a small swarm of locusts can consume sufficient food that could feed up to 35,000 people.
These huge numbers are still not accurate, and researchers believe that several more hectares of farmland have been destroyed since surveys cannot be conducted at a large scale owing to the recent pandemic and inaccessibility of certain areas.
Locusts can travel up to 150 km in a single day, leaving the locust free countries, like Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi, vulnerable.
The World Bank has allocated 500 million dollars to suppress the locust attacks in the affected areas. Pesticides are being sprayed over a maximum area and it is said that 400,000 acres of land have been saved so far with nearly 400 billion locusts killed.
The region has already suffered a lot and for people residing in east African countries, its disaster after disaster for them. The region has suffered droughts, flash floods, a pandemic, and worst of all, the ever-running poverty.
Now, locust eggs await their hatch with the climatic conditions favoring them in every way possible, and farmers fear for their June-July harvest.