Afghan farmers despair as locusts plague precious crops

Kandali, Afghanistan (AFP):

Locusts have descended on crops in northern Afghanistan, under the helpless gaze of farmers and their families already stalked by famine.

In the village of Kandali in northern Balkh, one of eight affected provinces in the country’s breadbasket, a staggering swarm of grey insects has amassed on a fallow wheat field.

After feasting on the harvest they laid eggs to hatch anew next spring, continuing a cycle of destruction in a nation where nine in 10 families already struggle to afford food, according to the UN.

“They eat everything that is green: wheat, peas, sesame,” Baz Mohammad, a representative of Kandali village, shared

Desperate farmers used nets to sweep up the plague of Moroccan Locusts — one of the world’s most voracious pests — before burying them in trenches, but their numbers are still multiplying.

“We walk with hungry stomachs to kill the locusts. If we don’t kill them, our agriculture will be ruined,” Mohammad said.

This year’s outbreak could destroy 1.2 million tonnes of wheat, a quarter of the annual harvest, causing a loss of up to $480 million, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Afghanistan is facing its third consecutive year of drought, with farmers in Kandali reporting no rains since March, which could have helped wash away the bugs.

“Harvest forecasts this year are the best we have seen for the last three years,” FAO Afghanistan representative Richard Trenchard said last month.

“But this outbreak threatens to destroy all these recent gains and dramatically worsen the food insecurity situation later this year and into next year.”

The head of locust control at the provincial agricultural ministry, Sifatullah Azizi, said 7,000 hectares (17,000 acres) of land has been treated chemically and manually, but it is not enough.

“We have acted within our means. To eradicate them you need a budget, to hire workers, pay for fuel, products,” he said.