Desert Locust Threat To Agricultural Development And Food Security And Fao / International Role In Its Control

Michel Lecoq, Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement, Prifas, TA40/D, 34398 Montpellier Cedex 5, France
E-mail: lecoq@cirad.fr

Abstract

The Desert Locust is a major pest in many countries in Africa and the Near East. The episodic invasions are linked to favourable periods of rain in its desert outbreak areas where it originates. Recent studies have dealt with the persistence of the threat and have highlighted the economic, social and environmental issues which are very different from the usual crop protection problems encountered and which require specific actions. Monitoring and control are organised at both the national and regional levels with the support of the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), thanks to three Desert Locust control commissions. At the international level, the FAO plays a major role – mandated by its members – in the coordination of monitoring and control activities. It operates a central forecasting and warning service and plays an important role in the coordination of assistance, particularly during periods of recrudescence and plague. The Desert Locust Control Committee was created by FAO in 1955, uniting the concerned countries and is responsible for following the development of locust activity throughout the entire invasion area, defining the most well adapted control strategies, mobilising the resources necessary for control operations, promoting research earmarked for the improvement of locust control and encouraging the coordination of domestic and international operation plans concerned with preventive actions. The last plague, from 1987-1989, the result of the gradual weakening of the preventive control system (responsible for the long recession period beginning in the 1960's) set off the debate once again about the importance of the Desert Locust and control strategies, in which the FAO played a key role. Today's preventive control strategy is still considered as the best possible approach and consists of two basic elements: early warning and early reaction. In 1994 the FAO launched the EMPRES program, aimed at reinforcing the locust control capabilities of countries with outbreak areas and strengthening related regional and international cooperation. The success of the EMPRES program is vital to ensuring the sustainability of preventive control, to reducing invasion risks, to maintaining food safety in the region and to guaranteeing the preservation of the environment threatened by intensive chemical locust control campaigns.