The desert locust, the most notorious of about a dozen locust species for its ability to rapidly multiply and travel long distances, threatens an area of 32 million square kilometres, stretching across 50 countries from west Africa to India.

The fearsome insect has been farmers’ foe since the earliest days of agriculture.

When solitary, locusts are harmless. But when they congregate into groups they transform – in behaviour and even appearance – into killer vegetarians. In turn, swarms can be as large as several hundred square kilometres, of which a single square kilometre can comprise at least 40 million bugs, at times even double that.

In the immature adult phase, a locust can consume its own weight – about two grams – in vegetation per day, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). One tonne of desert locusts (“a very small part of an average swarm”, according to FAO’s website) could guzzle in a single day an amount of food equivalent to that consumed by 2,500 people. Locust plagues could therefore seriously imperil crop production, and in turn food security.

An ongoing desert locust upsurge, primarily along the Red Sea periphery, possibly acts as a reminder to a natural threat that is often overlooked, or even deemed a thing of the past.

Swarms of locusts spread from North Africa

Countries today are considerably better equipped to deal with the threat than they used to be. The second half of the twentieth century has seen a dramatic decline in frequency, duration and intensity of desert locust plagues, largely thanks to improved control and monitoring capacities in the affected countries.

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