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MALI: Locusts May Destroy One Third Of Grain Crop |
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I believe the Lord has
given me a mandate to do something in this situation. How? I have no clue. It
will take a car, food to distribute... then we can preach the good news and
do what Jesus did. Please pray. I'm arriving back in
Bamako Wednesday night. Love, Claudia MALI:
Locusts may destroy one third of grain crop BAMAKO, 23 September
(IRIN) - Locusts are expected to destroy about one million tonnes of this
year's grain crop in Mali - about one third of the expected harvest - despite
frantic government efforts to control the invasion of insects, UN officials
said on Thursday. Although the Ministry of
Agriculture has so far only published an official estimate that 441,000
tonnes of food will be lost, they said government officials privately told a
UN mission which visited Bamako last week they expected the true figure to be
nearer one million tonnes. The UN officials said
current efforts to contain the locusts, which are pouring in from
neighbouring Mauritania and are breeding across a vast swathe of central
Mali, were plagued by poor logistics. One UN official closely
involved with monitoring the locust crisis in West Africa told IRIN that Mali
had nine crop-dusting planes with which to spray infected land and adequate
stocks of insecticide. However, the planes were
often unable to fly for lack of fuel and maintenance and the insecticide was
not always available in the places where it was most needed, he added. According to an
Agriculture Ministry bulletin issued at the end of last week, more than
703,000 hectares of land in Mali have so far been infested with locusts, but
only 143,000 have been treated. It reported heavy damage
to crops and pasture in the western regions of Kayes and Koulikoro,
particularly in areas near the frontier with Mauritania. Fresh swarms of locusts
were flying into this region from Mauritania and a new generation of locally
bred locust larvae was starting to grow wings and take to the skies there,
the bulletin said. It also described a
"worrying" situation in the fertile area around Mopti, in
south-central Mali. This contains vast areas of irrigated land in an inland
delta formed by the river Niger. The river divides into a
series of channels as it flows north past the town of Segou. These channels
then reunite 400 km further north before the river flows past Timbucktoo on
the southern edge of the Sahara desert. The Ministry of
Agriculture also reported dense concentrations of flightless larvae, known as
hopper bands, and newly fledged immature locusts between Timbucktoo and Gao
at the top of the Niger bend. They were causing damage to crops and pasture
in this region, it added. "This year is
turning out to be a catastrope," Hamadoun Bourry, a peasant farmer near
Timbucktoo, told a visiting film crew from Malian state television. "Our
fields have been ravaged and even the areas of pasture where our animals feed
have been devastated by locusts." Increasingly the
government is being accused of doing too little too late. Only last month,
Agriculture Minister Seydou Traore was giving public assurances that the
locust situation was under control in Mali, but all those involved in the
battle to control the Sahel's worst locust invasion for 15 years now
recognise that it is not. "The government did
not act in time.above all we are short of the equipment and products that we
need," Baba Handane Djiteye, an agricultural advisor based in
Timbucktoo, told IRIN during a visit to Bamako. The UN World Food
Programme (WFP) which is already starting to build up food stocks to prevent
a possible famine if the harvest fails, is also concerned. Pablo Recalde, the WFP
representative in Mali, said; "The government and its partners should
have acted earlier." He noted that as early as
October last year, the authorities had been aware that swarms of locusts were
developing around Kidal in the desert northeast of Mali, 1,600 km from
Bamako. "In November 2003
and February 2004, the Early Warning System made a recommendation that the
government and its partners should put in place an effective operation to
control desert locusts and grain eating birds in good time..but unfortunately
that advice was not followed." As a result, Recalde
added, swarms began re-appearing in Mali on 18 April. The Malian government
finally appeared to wake up to the scale of the emergency in early September,
when President Amadou Toumani Toure and his 28 ministers announced that they
were each donating a month's salary to help fund the locust control campaign.
As in neighbouring
Senegal, the army has been brought in to help out. About 400 soldiers have
been drafted into the locust control campaign which currently has 31 spraying
teams deployed on the ground. The Malian authorities
have provided 24 of these teams, Algeria has sent four and Libya has provided
three more. The World Bank, United
States, Libya, South Africa and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)
have all provided or chartered fixed-wing crop-spraying aircraft and there is
one helicopter fitted with crop-dusting equipment at the campaign's disposal.
Meanwhile 1,500 village
locust control brigades have been formed to tackle the insects when they
appear at a local level. According to confidential
estimates prepared by the government and made available to IRIN, Mali should
be looking forward to a grain harvest of 3.1 million tonnes in October and
November, following good rains for the second year in a row. In the event of limited
crop damage by locusts, this would be reduced by 441,000 tonnes to about 2.6
million tonnes. That is the middle scenario which the government is publicly
sticking to. However, UN officials
said Agriculture Ministry officials were now tending towards a third scenario
under which virtually all grain production in Mali between the 14th and 17th
parallels would be lost. That would reduce the harvest by 1.25 million tonnes
to around 1.85 million tonnes. Their current estimate
was that about one million tonnes of food being grown for human consumption
would be destroyed by the insects, they added. Although weighing just
two grammes, a desert locust can eat its own weight in food each day. Swarms
can contain up to 80 million insects per square km and each swarm can cover
several square km. When hungry locusts descend on a patch of ground, they can
strip it clean of all greenery within a few hours. Ousmane Thiam, the
Minister for Promotion of Investment and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises,
who also fulfills the role of official government spokesman, said recently
that control efforts were focussed on stopping the locust swarms from moving
south of the 14th parallel. This runs along a line that stretches roughly
from Kayes in the west, through Mopti on the river Niger in central Mali, to
the point where the Niger river flows southwards into the Republic of Niger
in the east. Some peasants north of
this line have already given up hope. "This year, the harvest has been
completely ruined..the only thing left to do is leave the village," said
Halidou Maiga, who left his home near the eastern town of Gao to seek work in
Bamako. "A lot of other people are about to leave their villages,"
he added. Meanwhile, Recalde is
already preparing for the food shortages that undoubtedly lie ahead. "We have 33,000
tonnes of grain, 1.5 billion CFA francs ($2.8 million) in financial reserves,
plus the stocks that are in the hands of peasants and traders," he said. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Tel. (+223) 220 0311 IMPORTANT: Don't write my name on the check, but add
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