Locust outbreaks cause heavy losses on agricultural crops, and affects a quarter of the world’s population today, and scientists expect that the situation will exacerbate climate change, and they suggest a way to combat the phenomenon that integrates the knowledge of local communities and technology, as in a new research paper.
Locust is a type of insect infection that follows the wings straight family, which may be transformed under certain environmental conditions from individual locusts into huge moving swarms, which can travel vast distances, destroying crops along the road, and there are more than 20 thousand types of locusts in the world.
A author describes Research – What was published in the magazine “Nature”- the desert locusts as one of the “most destructive lesions in the world”.
One swarm consisting of tens of millions can roam an area of 1200 square kilometers, and one square kilometer of desert locust swarmers can contain up to 80 million locusts.
On one day, he can consume an amount of food equal to what is consumed by 35,000 people, and threatened the desert locust spread in 2020 in East Africa more than 20 million people at the risk of acute food insecurity.
Climate change is expected to exacerbate locusts, as the authors wrote, citing studies that show how tropical hurricanes and heavy rains and the resulting warm and humid soil have caused desert locust spread several times recently.
The authors add that the phenomenon of locust spread is dangerous, “however, this is still not included in the priorities in the field of climate.” It is also to fight it with chemical pesticides that raise many environmental and health problems.
According to the study, early detection is very important in responding to locust spread and limiting losses, however, the authors add that regions such as East Africa face challenges in early detection due to their dimension, difficulty access to them and conflicts that are in them.
The importance of early warning
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has a monitoring system around the clock throughout the week to monitor locust invasions and its reproduction sites, using satellite images, locust data, weather, and environmental data from the affected areas.
The research indicated that verifying data through land measurements and observations is still a major challenge, given the multiplication of locusts in remote areas, “many of which have become unsafe to make ground surveys increasingly.”
To complete the current early detection procedures, the researchers realize the important role of the original peoples and local societies, who have developed practices based on local acquaintances for generations for the environmental health of their lands, weather patterns, and desert locusts, including the timing of “conquest operations” and the behavior of sacred.
The study indicates that during locusts in East Africa in the period 2020-2021, the comments of local communities in remote areas contributed to the early warning system to alert states.
The authors affirm that these local communities are among the most vulnerable to locust crises, and therefore should be helped by training them in using instant messaging techniques and applications and data collection platforms such as “Earthranger” and “ELOCUST”, two digital tools used by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to monitor locusts.
“Elocost” allows the transfer of field notes in the actual time from remote areas that lack the network coverage, and add that this service and other systems can also be enhanced by artificial intelligence, which combines locally collected information with satellite data and weather to predict locusts and the movement of its lacquests.
To combat locust swarms, researchers are warned against relying on air spraying or comprehensive use of chemical pesticides. Instead, they stress the intensification of environmentally friendly vital pesticides and environmentally safe practices to reduce damage or side effects.