Fao’s Empres (Desert Locust) Programme – Towards Sustainable Preventive Control

Clive Elliott, , Locust Group AGPP, FAO, Via delle terme di Caracalla, 00100 Rome, Italy
E-mail: Clive.Elliott@FAO.ORG

Abstract

The Desert Locust plague of 1986-1989 and the upsurges that followed in 1992-1994 led to widespread concern at the cost of control and the potential for adverse environmental side-effects. In response to these concerns, the FAO Director-General launched a Special Programme EMPRES (Emergency Prevention System for Transboundary Animal and Plant Pests and Diseases) with one component addressed only to the Desert Locust Schistocerca gregaria. EMPRES was launched with a Central Region field programme in 9 countries around the Red Sea in 1997, and is in the process of being extended to 9 countries in the Western Region (West and North-West Africa). EMPRES includes a further 4 countries in the Eastern Region (South-West Asia), but no programme has been developed there so far. The programme focuses on strengthening national capacities to carry out Early Warning locust surveys and to implement Early Reaction control practices with the objective of reducing the risk of plague development. The presentation will review the progress achieved to date in establishing preventive control in the Central Region and the pilot activities accomplished in the Western Region. New technologies offer the prospect for better detection of the initial outbreaks, reduced survey costs and environmentally friendlier/cheaper control, but the ability of national units to carry out regular and efficient surveys remains fundamental to avoiding surprises. EMPRES Central Region is also placing emphasis on contingency planning, such that countries can react in an orderly way to the different scenarios that may develop as Desert Locust populations increase