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SWARMS OF LOCUSTS in Ethiopia have damaged half a million acres of cropland and driven around a million people to require emergency food aid, the United Nations said today.
The findings from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which recently concluded a joint assessment with the Ethiopian government, come as the region is bracing for new swarms that could be even more destructive.
Billions of desert locusts, some in swarms the size of Moscow, have already chomped their way through much of East Africa, including Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti, Eritrea, Tanzania, Sudan, South Sudan and Uganda.
Their breeding has been spurred by one of the wettest rainy seasons in the region in four decades.
In Ethiopia, the locusts have caused widespread losses of sorghum, wheat and maize, also known as corn, and vastly reduced the amount of available land for cattle grazing, FAO said.
Some 75% of Ethiopians requiring emergency food assistance live in the country’s Somali and Oromia regions.
FAO Ethiopia representative Fatouma Seid said farmer and pastoralists needed help in the form of agricultural inputs and cash transfers to get them through the emergency, which was being worsened by the coronavirus pandemic.
“It is critical to protect the livelihoods of the affected population especially now that the situation is compounded by the COVID-19 crisis,” Seid said, referring to the disease caused by the coronavirus.
Ethiopia has recorded just 74 cases of COVID-19, but testing has been limited and experts fear the country’s weak health system, like others in the region, could be quickly overwhelmed by an influx of cases.
The pandemic is also having a crippling economic effect in many countries, destroying jobs, dislocating trade systems and crimping supply lines through lockdowns and movement restrictions.
The locust situation, meanwhile, is likely to get even worse.
Last week, FAO warned a “massive increase” in locusts across the region would pose “an unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods” by imperilling the upcoming planting and harvest seasons.
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Any good news today ?
@Liam Collins: a found a 10er in a pair of jeans
@eoin carroll: any more details on this.did hear rumours on twitter but lot of fake news out there
@eoin carroll: is he in the game
@eoin carroll: is he on the game
@Liam Collins: There was rumours that it was a 50 and 5g changed it into a 10 but I can confirm that I wouldn’t have a 50 coming home from the pub
@eoin carroll: what is this “Pub” you talk about
@eoin carroll: Wearing the tracksuits for a month now i take it?
Jesus, I cant believe some of the comments here. Countless numbers of people will die because of this and apparently its a big joke!
@Fr. Fintan Stack: thank you for being practically the only person to empathise with Ethiopians. This is horrendous for them. It’s such a lovely country with the warmest, most welcoming people. A slight change in weather (too much or too little rain) can have devastating consequences. Mostly they worry they won’t get enough rain but now, cruelly, getting more than normal rain has caused the locust swarms which will destroy their food chain. It’s heartbreaking.
The usual journal experts will be along any minute now to blame the HSE and government for this as well
@jackamy: well locust and ffg.. The comparisons write themselves.
@jackamy: this would not of happened under a sinn fein government
@King B: I can think of others too!
@jackamy: What has the HSE got to say about this?
Just kidding.
I would say the story should say 5 times the area of Addis Ababa instead of comparing it to Moscow.
@Liam Collins: why don’t all the SF head out to Ethiopia to solve the problem. They could eat the locusts instead of wasting their nonexistent talents here.
@jackamy: dont be stupid Jack, it was 5G that did this
No no.. this is defo 5G’s doing
@Brendan Geoghegan: i get the reaction to 5g has been OTT to say the least but there is a valid conversation to be had to be honest… Dismissing it as a joke will only add fuel to the Gemma O Dohertys of society https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/topics/cellphones/index.html
They should eat the locusts. They won’t be hungry then.
Alright god, we get it, you hate us.
Locust are edible and kosher if ya need them to be. Think of them as flying prawns.
@Roy Donovan: They thought so but then realised this type of locusts has toxic fluids inside
@Seriousnojoke: l have no proof whatsoever but it is most likely the toxic fluids are from the pesticides the crops they eat are sprayed in. If I am correct the people are ingesting those chemicals anyway.
@Niall Bourke: No, it’s not mentioned in the recent research that it’s from pesticides. This type of locusts grows much larger than the normal ones to an extent that it starts to produce toxic fluids inside which makes them inedible for ducks or other birds.
@Seriousnojoke: just like SF
@Seriousnojoke: does cooking neutralise the toxins?
@Smiley: No. Some are heat stable to over 200 C
@Seriousnojoke: sent the locusts to China. They will eat anything. ( Hmm locust curry yum yum)
Plagues and locusts it is the end of times.
@MyBrokenKnees: so how come all the other times there were plagues and locusts in history, nothing ended?
@Alan Currie: hundreds of thousands died, over and over for centuries. We only became aware of it when explorers documented these events in recent times.
Should have closed the borders earlier
Nature speaks loud and clear this year!!
I read a few weeks ago that China were after exporting millions of ducks to Africa to fight the locust problem. Apparently one duck can eat thousands a day.
@Mairtin Antaine O Conaill: that was just an order for frozen duck for a takeaway in Addis Ababa
@Dean Anderson: Locust Kung Po… lovely.
@Mairtin Antaine O Conaill: That was just a theory… ducks couldn’t live in the desert. so China sent pesticide and supplies instead..
@Mairtin Antaine O Conaill: So long as they don’t send bats.
Some of the comments here are truly sickening.. people are dying and they make a joke about it. Some people are are disgusting horrible excuses of humanity.
Here’s a mad idea you know all those planes just sitting on Civilian and Military bases why not fly a few hundred of them around the clock until the swarm is destroyed . It’s not like crop dusters was invented yesterday
@Airwave81: at a guess I’d say you couldn’t use commercial passenger airliners as crop dusters.
@Airwave81: intake pipes smothered by locusts – goodnight
plagues and locusts swarms. the apocalypse is coming. lets blame FG for that too.
And we only have to deal with vultures
Locusts can be fried and eaten. They sell fried locusts, grasshoppers, silkwoms, scorpions and spiders in markets in Vietnam and Cambodia. So this swarm could be their food source.
have your say