The Eighth Plague
West Africa's Locust Invasion

When November comes each year, the people of Thill Peulh take turns helping one another reap the fields of vegetables, millet and cassava that stretch as far as the eye can see, broken here and there by grey-trunked baobab trees.

This year, however, the fields around this hamlet of a few dozen huts about 100 kilometres (km) from the Senegalese capital, Dakar, were bare. This is the handiwork of billions of desert locusts who began crossing south into Senegal in August 2004, after destroying much of the harvest in neighbouring Mauritania.

When IRIN visited Thill Peulh on 3 October, a swarm of young locusts had descended on the village early in the morning, devouring what little was left of already devastated fields. The ground was carpeted with the insects and the villagers were powerless to stop them.

Marie Diop goes up and down her field, surrounded by clouds of silent, pink insects. A month before it was a real field. Now it is just a sandy area with a few roots sticking out of the ground and even fewer remaining melons. Marie keeps banging away at a pot with a wooden spoon, hoping the sound would drive the locusts away. It didn't. They continued chewing away at what was left of her melons, ignoring her efforts to disperse them.

After a few minutes, Marie puts her saucepan down, sat on the ground and shared one of the small melons with her three children.

"It's been going on for three weeks," she sighed. "This must be the tenth time they've come to this field since they arrived. Usually, we clap them away with the pots, but they are too many. It's no use."

Before using modern steel pans, farmers used to try to drive the locusts away with traditional drums. Another method used by villagers is to burn rubber tires, so that the thick smoke would chase them away. However, on that October day the gentle morning breeze disbursed the fumes before they could get to the locusts.

The sheer size of the swarms that invaded Senegal and other parts of West Africa in 2004 rendered the traditional methods of fighting the locusts ineffective. Swarms were spotted stretching over 70 km, containing trillions of insects.

Along Senegal's border with Mauritania, the maize and pepper farm where Djiby Diop works has also been hit.

"The swarms came several times here and for hours we chased by waving flags, but they were too many," said the farm labourer. "They ate half of the crops."

If the farm where Djiby works was partly saved, that's because "proprietors and farmers pooled money to buy pesticide and spray the fields. But we are too short on equipment," he said.

The farm's proprietor alerted the Directorate of Rural Development to the presence of the swarm, which sent a team of soldiers equipped with portable sprayers. Despite these interventions, this year's harvest was expected to be considerably smaller.

The paradox is that when the rains are good, as in 2004, locusts multiply faster. Had it not been for the insects, this year's harvest would have been exceptionally good.

Fighting the locusts calls for good timing and proper planning. The only time they can be tackled without using pesticides is 25 to 50 days after they are hatched - depending on the climate - when they crawl around in a single direction, like a yellow, moving carpet. At that stage, they are larvae - wingless, flightless and unable to travel long distances, so it is possible to dig trenches and bury them.

However, the population's reaction to the locusts is ambivalent, according to Moussa Niang, head of the Integrated Programme for Podor (PIP) that trains locust awareness officers.

"It is absolutely necessary for people to understand the danger that locusts represent, so that they can help in our efforts," he said.

Awareness officers deployed in the area often have difficulties convincing residents to work with them and accept the gravity of the problem. A few of them saw locusts for the last time in 1989, and in a much smaller numbers. Even for them, it is hard to imagine the size of the 2004 swarms.

Awareness workshops are also counterproductive at times.

"We explain to them that the pesticides are toxic and how to protect themselves, for example, by not allowing their animals to graze in a field that has been sprayed for two to three days, to avoid poisoning," Niang said. The result, he explained, was that some farmers did not report swarms for fear that their farms might be sprayed and contaminated. However, the locusts would eat the crops. "People only think in terms of immediate effects," Niang said.

The PIP has distributed an information brochure with text and images explaining the locust danger and how to fight it.

"If there is a famine, farmers are the first people hit," Niang said. "The authorities are fine - they eat imported food. The state reacted [to the locust crisis] without involving the population. From the word 'go', the approach was wrong."

The devastation caused by locusts in western Africa in 2004 is far from over. Still, it already highlights the importance of disaster reduction strategies and effective risk management mechanisms. Local governments and the international community cannot contend with simple "damage control" operations if they are to prevent a similar disaster next year.

[ENDS]