URSABLOG: The Eighth Plague

The afflictions facing the world today seem to be coming more biblical as each day passes. Corvid 19, as we must learn to call it, and the measures implemented to stop its spread, continue to wreak confusion and havoc around the world. And you know that shipping has it bad when the Financial Times reports on our woes. But I noticed something else the other day so alarming that I wondered whether we had gone back in time to another era.

For those of you that haven’t noticed, large parts of East Africa, as well as India and Pakistan are suffering a plague of locusts. Really. This is not something made up, or recycled from a 50s Hollywood epic, it is happening now, and the numbers are horrifyingly huge. Consider this:

-         1 square kilometre of a swarm of locusts contains forty million insects

-         These insects can devour 80 tonnes of organic matter every day

-         The organic matter they eat is basically anything green, crops, grass, pasture, leaves

-         They can travel up to 200 kilometres per day

They are currently chewing up large parts of Kenya, suffering the largest infestation for seventy years. Pakistan is similarly battling huge swarms not seen for thirty years. Where do they come from, and why now?

Well the story starts in the rather romantically named Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia almost two years ago. Benign weather conditions, well benign for the desert, meant there was heavy rain and enough moisture for the eggs of the appropriately named desert locusts to hatch. This being the Empty Quarter, there was no-one there to notice what was going on, so between June 2018 and March 2019, the hoppers, what young desert locusts are called, grew in peace. Civil war in Yemen, and political tensions around the Straits of Hormuz, were also, understandably, distracting factors.

In the spring and early summer of 2019, favourable moist winds meant that the insects started travelling, and by late summer and autumn, they had started moving in large numbers across the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden down into Ethiopia, Somalia, and then on to Kenya. Other winds carried another swarm across into Iran and then on to Pakistan.

The photos and videos I have seen are incredible yet poignant. One desert locust is no match for a man who can simply step on it. A few billion insects just overwhelm everyone, and whilst farmers and their families try and keep the locusts off their crops, there are simply too many to deal with.

Planes have started to spray pesticides, but the worst could be yet to occur. They are green when they are young, then when they get on the move they turn pink red.

Lawrence Mwagire has a farm in Njoga village in central Kenya:

“I said to my wife Daisy ‘this will be one heavy downpour!’ But to my surprise, within a few minutes, the cloud landed on trees, and a pink-red shade replaced the vast green scenery. That is when we realised the dreaded locusts had made a landfall next to our farm.”

According to Climate Home News, by morning, the trees had lost the top green leaves, and the swarm of locusts had started to devour Mwagire’s livelihood – cowpeas, green grams, maize and Khat on his three-acre farm in Embu county, about 155 kilometres northeast of Nairobi.

“This was the best planting season we had for the last five years. I anticipated to harvest at least 280 kilograms of cowpeas, 560 kgs of green grams, and 250 kgs of maize before the invasion,” he said. He lost all the cowpeas within three days, and with his maize developing sudden rust, the most he could hope to harvest was 40 kilos.

The problem now is that the pink-red locusts are turning yellow, which means that they are now becoming sexually mature and ready to mate, and lay eggs. Cyril Ferrand of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) put this into context:

 “Within the next three months, we could potentially have a 20 times bigger problem than we have now,” given typical population growth if the weather is suitable for the eggs to hatch and the vast new generation of insects manages to find enough food and then further reproduce. In six months there could be “400 times bigger swarms if we do not work on the control now,” he said. With heavy rain forecast, breeding conditions will be ideal, or apocalyptic, depending on whether you are a desert locust or a Kenyan farmer.

Regular readers will know that a couple of years ago I visited Mombasa, and although I did not visit the inland counties, I have an abiding affection for the people. It is a fragile economy there, to say the least, and there are no huge subsidies for them when crops fail. But it is not just crops that are failing, it is a whole link in the food chain. Desert locusts are not discriminating, and whilst cash crops can be replaced, goats and cows will still need leaves and pasture to graze on, which will not exist if the locusts get there first. The implications are grim.

This is no-one’s fault: it is a natural disaster due to a perfect storm of environmental conditions. Aid, in terms of food, money, technology and equipment will be needed to prevent a disaster. The UN is already looking for US$ 70 million to help fund the spraying of pesticides, which will be less effective if heavy rain falls, which, as you will have gathered, will be more favourable to the sexually mature desert locusts.

This, however, is taking place in countries that don’t affect the world economy too much, so is getting far less air time than Corvid 19, or trade wars. The stimulus expected to be needed to stabilise the Chinese economy is expected to run into the hundred billions. The Trump Administration has already subsidised farmers US$ 28 billion to secure their support for the trade wars started to Make America Great Again, or secure President Trump a second term, depending on how cynical you are feeling.

We are rightly afraid of the effects of a new virus that can spread around the world and endanger all humans in contact with it, and the anti-pandemic measures being put into place are indeed impressive. But spare a thought for those in East Africa and Pakistan who lack the infrastructure, money and political power to combat a plague that has fallen on them literally from the skies. For them, it seems, they can only hope and pray.

Simon Ward

www.ursashipbrokers.com