ReliefWeb

SITUATION

On the morning of Tuesday the 3rd March 2020 six out of nine regional states namely - Afar, Amhara,
Oromia, Somali, Tigray and Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ as well as the administration city of Dire Dawa are affected by desert locust invasion. A total of 173 districts are affected, up from 56 in October 2019. The desert locust invasion if not controlled can cause large scale-scale crop, pasture, and forest cover losses which worsening food and feed availability, especially in areas emerging from recurrent El nino induced drought. According to FAO, numerous immature swarms appeared in a large portion of the Somali region in Ethiopia (between Jijiga, Gode and Warder). Desert locusts continue coming into Ethiopia from Somalia while cross - border swarm movements with Kenya are ongoing. An increasing number of swarms have been moving towards the southwest to central and southern Oromia region while other swarms remained in the Ogaden of the Somali region.

The locust swarms had extended as far south as the Ethiopia/Kenya border (Moyale) and onwards near Konso and adjacent areas of eastern Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region (SNNPR). It is noted that there are also significant cross-border swarm movements. By the end of February, locust swarms had moved into the Ethiopian Rift Valley from the south and already reached Awassa and Nazareth. It is forecasted that swarm movements are likely to occur in Somalia, Oromia and parts of SNNP regions, and are expected to reach the central highlands. To make it worse, the swam movements will breed substantially due to cross-border swarm movements into Ethiopia along the Somali and Kenya border, causing hopper bands to form. the problem is unprecedented. Current operations is underway in the Somali, Oromia and SNNPR by the Ethiopian government.

The Ethiopian government Ministry of Agriculture has conducted aerial control operations and treated 22, 500 ha but the scale of the problem is unprecedented since so far, the locusts have only been intercepted in 1,033km2 . Control operation has been attempted and only 966 km2 by applying over 75 000 litres of pesticides mainly through aerial spraying. The control operations need to be scaled up, already, Ethiopia national Disaster Risk Management – Agriculture Task Force in collaboration with FAO and Ministry of Agriculture have initiated an assessment of the impact of the locust invasion in Ethiopia and findings would be shared mid-March 2020.