Kenya is at risk of being invaded by desert locusts in the coming months, experts have warned.
This was revealed on Tuesday at Trademark Hotel, Gigiri when experts released the 65th Greater Horn of Africa Climate Outlook Forum.
The forum brought together climate scientists, researchers, users from key socio-economic sectors, governmental and non-governmental organisations, development partners, decision-makers, media, and civil society stakeholders.
Theme of the forum was, "Climate Services for Scenario Planning and Resilience Building".
IGAD-Climate Prediction and Applications Center (ICPAC) Director Guleid Artan said the threat of desert locust infestation is high.
Artan said desert locust infestation is happening in northern Ethiopia and Eastern Sudan.
“As the rains begin in this region, the conditions might become favourable for desert locust infestation in the region,” Artan said.
Kenya is currently free from Desert Locust after two consecutive invasions in 2019 and 2020.
Artan said countries in the region have to get ready to fight locusts.
He said the conditions might make desert locust to last for about a year. He however noted that the region is much more prepared than it was three years ago.
“For example Ethiopia has bought five aircrafts to control desert locust. Every country in the region has aircraft and pesticides,” Artan said.
Artan said the coordination has been enhanced.
He however warned that the conditions are becoming much more favourable for infestation.
“We have to up our game on control.”
Artan urged communities to share information about the expected desert locust invasion with local authorities.
“These desert locusts do not know boundaries and they can devastate the local livelihood of the people if they are not controlled,” he said.
Kenneth Mwangi, an agriculture monitoring expert using satellite from IGAD Climate Prediction Centre, said pest invasion are among extremes driven by climate change.
“We have been coordinating the platform where we bring countries together and monitor pest situation,” Mwangi said.
Mwangi said they monitor pests and their movements using various tools.
He said quelea birds that have been invading rice farms are some of the trans-boundary pests they monitor.
Mwangi said they have a monitoring tool to monitor desert locusts.
“We look at how the pests are migrating from the region from Yemen, South Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, and Ethiopia before developing early warning information,” he said.
Mwangi said they are already seeing a situation whereby desert locusts are becoming threat to the country due to insecurity challenges in Ethiopia, parts of Somalia, part of Yemen.
“We might have more locusts coming in in more numbers and due to El Nino; we are also seeing increased rains and increased temperatures. That means locusts are likely to multiply in big swarms.”
Mwangi said there is need to start preparing with desert locust control organisations, Ministry of Agriculture so that they look for pesticides on time and put in place other measures.
He also raised concern with the upsurge of army worm due to climatic shocks.
During the forum, experts said the enhanced rains offers good opportunity for the region that has been reeling on drought for the past two years.
They warned that there is need for careful impacts of the expected rains.
Of concern to them are flash floods, landslides and other negative impacts.
Also expected during the season is moderate to strong El Niño.
Source: The Star