Research
Locust1 (Orthoptera: Acrididae) Outbreak in Africa and Asia,
1992-1994: An Overview
Allan 1: Showier
ABSTRACT
Desert locust, SclJistocerca gregaria (Forskill), began to exhibit gregarious behavior and amassed into swarms in the fall of
1992 along the Red Sea coast; successive generations of gregarious locusts over the next 18 mo gave rise to localized outbreaks west to
Mauritania
and east to India. Concurrent African migratory locust, Locusta migratoria migratorioides (Reiche & Fairmaire), and tree
locust, Anacridium melallorhodoll (Walker) outbreaks compounded the locust infestations in the Horn of Africa. Evolution of the overall
outbreak is described, including ways in which locusts were found and controlled. Preparation and lack of armed conflict in critical locust
breeding areas, particularly in Eritrea and the Red Sea coast of Sudan, facilitated early intervention with relatively selective and low residual
insecticides. Preventive, proactive, and reactive locust control approaches are described, and future trends for locust management in Africa
and Asia are identified. Sustained and successful preventive and proactive approaches, especially against S. gregaria would help to alleviate
a serious constraint to agricultural production with the aim of reducing localized famine in regions chronically plagued by drought, poverty,
and hunger.
D
ESERT LOClIST,
SCHISTOCERCA
GRECARIA
(FORSKAL),
POPULA-
tions along the Red Sea coasts of Sudan, Eritrea, Yemen,
and Saudi Arabia (Fig. 1) increased sufficiently over 2 or 3
generations,! in the summer of 1992, to induce change from solitary
to gregarious behavior (Steedman 1988) in the fall. This change was
evidenced by outbreaks
(or upsurges). Outbreaks
constitute the
vaguely defined transition from the innocuous solitary phase to the
plague stage (Food and Agriculture Organization
[FAa] 1994a).
Migration of swarms, from late fa111992 to early spring 1994, resulted in localized infestations elsewhere in Africa, the Arabian Peninsula (region that includes Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen) and
southwestern
Asia, sometimes in combination
with infestations of
African migratory locust, LOCIIsta migratoria migratorioides (Reiche & Fairmaire); and tree locust, Anacridillm melallorhodoll
(Walker) (U.S. Agency for International
Development
[USAID]
1993a, b) ..
The 3 locust species of the 1992-1994 outbreak tend to exhibit
gregarious behavior, particularly after postdrought
flushes of vegetation (Meinzingen 1993, FAa 1994a). When in the solitary phase,
their habitats are limited to the plague recession distribution areas in
Africa and Asia (Fig. 1); when gregarious, their high mobility as
adults, aided by prevailing winds, facilitates movement well beyond
the recession areas. As an overview, this article describes the
1992-1994
locust outbreak and control campaign in Africa and
Asia; distinguishes between preventive, proactive, and reactive approaches to locust control; and summarizes trends in locust control
in Africa and Asia.
Background
Desert locust plagues occur mostly in desert and scrub regions of
northern Africa, the Middle East, and southwest Asia (Fig. 1; PedgIcy 1981). During plagues, locust swarms (gregarious adults that fly
together)1 and bands (gregarious nymphs that cannot fly, but travel
together on the ground) are found on an interregional
scale and
originate from a number of breeding areas (Fig. 2) as part of an in'Common n3mes of locusts 3re nor currently among common names of insects and
related org3nisms 3pproved for use b)' the ESA Committee on Common N3mes of Insects.
'Dumtions of locust life cycles 3re v3riable, depending on species and environmental
conditions. In Afric3. there are generally 3-5 generations per year.
'Swarms generally fly during the d3ytime and rest during the night. Tree locusts,
however, rend to fly during the night.
AMERICAN
ENTml<H.OGIST
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terrelated locust breeding and migrating dynamic (Steedman 1988,
FAa 1994a). Plagues have caused considerable damage to crops. In
1954-1955,
for example, Morocco lost >$50 million (in 1994 dollars) to desert locusts in 1 season. In 1958, Ethiopia lost 167,000 t
of grain, enough to feed a million people for 1 yr (Steedman 1988).
The last major locust plague, prior to the outbreak of 19921994, began in 1986-1987 when swarms from the Red Sea coast of
Eritrea and Sudan moved west across the Sahel (region that includes
Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and northern Senegal
and Cameroon)
(Showier and Potter 1991). Breeding occurred
around the foothills of the Adrar des Iforas Mountains in Mali, the
Air Mountains and the Tamesna of Niger, the Tibesti Mountains in
Chad, the Red Sea Hills of Sudan, and Mauritania (Fig. 2) and, to a
lesser extent, in Morocco,
Saudi Arabia, Senegal, and Algeria
(Showier 1993) until the early spring of 1989 when the plague ended. Approximately
$300 million was spent by donors (PANOS
1993) to protect crops at risk, including all cereals, sugarcane, cabbage, legumes, yam, cassava, potato, cotton, groundnut, citrus, fruit
trees, date palm, and banana (Steedman 1988). Emergency control
operations helped to avert serious crop losses, but the end of the
plague was caused by climatic factors (Office of Technology Assessment [OTA] 1990, Showier and Potter 1991).
Plagues of African migratory locust, the last of which began in
Mali in 1928 and ended in 1941,4 can involve most of Africa south
of the Sahara (Fig. 1). Subsequent outbreaks have been, in some
cases, alarming, but did not evolve to plague status. In 1951, for
example, a major upsurge in Niger was suppressed after 17,000
nymphal bands were sprayed (Steedman 1988). African migratory
locust pose serious threats to fruit, vegetable, and rangeland production and to cereal crops in particular (Meinzingen 1993). For example, 40% of Guinea's rice crop was lost in 1930, and 35% of the
banana crop was lost annually from 1931 to 1934 (it is likely that
there were other crop losses in Guinea caused by locusts during the
1930s).
'Since the last plague. African migratory locust outbreaks have been reported
around l3ke Chad; the Red Sea coastal lowlands of Eritre3, northern Som3li3, 3nd
Sudan; the Ogaden of Ethiopia; Zimbabwe's Hippo Valley; northwest Angola; and
Botswana's Lake Ngami area (Steedman 1988). In late 1993 3nd early 1994, limited
African migmtory locust and red locust, Nomadacris septelllfasciata (Serville), outbreaks occurred in Namibia's Caprivi Strip and adjacent areas in Botswana and Z3mbia.
A L. migratoria capito (Saussure) outbreak occurred in M3dag3scar, 1992-1993.
179
Indian
Ocean
GAMBI
~,~;;:~~~~:ij
Desert
locust recession area
W'.···"
Atlantic
Ocean
. . ..
::.... :::
Desert locust invasion area
•
I
African migratory locust
invasion area
Tree locust distribution
Kllomelers
~
African migratory locust
outbreak area
t----i
1000
Fig. 1. Distributions of desert locust, S. gregaria; African migratory locust, L. migratoria migratorioides; and tree locust, A. melanorhodon
(Steed-
man 1988). Tree locust outbreaks begin most commonly in the Nile valley of Sudan.
Tree locusts generally not a major pest, can cause serious localized damage, especially the defoliation of fodder and fruit trees'
(Meinzingen 1993).
Crop losses, because of locust infestations, potentially are devastating to local, and perhaps national, economies (Potter and ShowIer 1990, PANOS 1993, Wewetzer et al. 1993). Losses are difficult to
assess (USAID 1991, PANOS 1993) because of "hidden" costs, such
as effects of forage destruction, damage to subsistence farms (which
comprise much of Africa's agriculture), and the expense of additional food aid from international
donors (ShowIer 1995).
Locust plagues occur in some of the world's most famine-prone
areas and, thus, generate considerable concern within both economic and humanitarian
contexts. I have heard some verbal debate in
international
fora on the idea that locusts, even during plague years,
cause too little overall damage to warrant control efforts. Evidence
suggests that this is not universally true (Steedman 1988, PANOS
1993), but even if it were, locusts are capable of causing total crop
loss, within hours, at the local level. Denial of requests for assistance
(especially when they are made in the context of formal disaster
declarations) by local governments can be viewed as being a morally
and politically unacceptable option for regions where crop produc-
'Includes gum arabic, Acacia spp., and other browse trees; date palm; and fruit,
shade, and ornamental trees (Steedman 1988). Tree locust also are known to attack
cereal and vegetable crops (Meinzingen 1993).
180
tion is vital to the survival of farmers
ments (Potter and Shawler 1990).
and, in many cases, govern-
Outbreak Chronology, 1992-19946
In early August 1992, unusually heavy rains along the Red Sea
coasts of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula made it possible for solitary phase desert locust populations
to increase for 2-3 generations. Rainfall in the Sahel created favorable conditions in Africa's
interior locust breeding areas (Fig. 2), and by early fall, breeding had
begun in southern Mauritania
and the Tamesna of Niger. Also,
desert locust and African migratory locust infestations were reported in western Eritrea in September.
A pronounced desert locust outbreak began in November along
the Red Sea coastal lowlands of Sudan and Eritrea (Fig. 3). Swarms
migrated across the Red Sea to the Tihama region of Yemen and
Saudi Arabia where breeding conditions also were favorable. Locust
activity in the Sahel, however, had ceased.
'Information on weather conditions and locust movements were obtained from the
following unpublished sources: Famine Early Warning Systems (FEWS) reports generated from USAID missions in Africa, unclassified USAID cables reporting on locust activity
and control efforts from African and Asian countries, FAOIECLO monthly bulletins
from Rome, DLCO-EA bulletins from Addis Ababa, Programme de Recherches lnterdisciplinaire Francais sur les Acridiens du Sahel (PRIFAS) newsletters from Montpellier, and
personal observations in Africa and Yemen.
AMERICAN ENTOMOI.OGIST
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Atlantic
Ocean
KIIomete",
f----4
o
1000
Fig. 2. Major desert locust breeding areas (shaded) during 1986-1989
plague (Showier and Potter 1991).
During the next 3 winter months, desert locust populations increased on both sides of rhe Red Sea coast and swarms began to
arrive in southeastern
Egypt, including farmland adjacent to the
Nile River. By late January 1993, swarms from the Red Sea coastal
lowlands of Africa again invaded the Tihama; then, in March-April,
swarms moved to and bred in Saudi Arabia's interior. Heavy rains in
the latter half of April renewed favorable breeding conditions along
the Red Sea lowlands of Eritrea, Sudan, and the Tihama, and in
Saudi Arabia's interior.
In May and June, 1993, locust populations in Eritrea, Sudan,
and Yemen developed into a serious outbreak, and swarms from
Sudan's coast moved into the vast Northern Kordofan district. Gregarious populations
of desert locust and African migratory locust
were concurrently
infesting Ethiopia and northern Somalia.
Drying conditions along the Red Sea caused desert locust swarms
to move eastward from the Tihama to the Pakistan-India
border
deserts, and from Sudan westward across the northern Sahel to
Mauritania.
By the 1st half of July, for example, 12 swarms had
invaded Rajastan and Gujayrat, India, but during the latter half of
July, in Rajastan alone, swarms were found at >635 locations, and
nymphal bands at >335 locations. Populations along the Red Sea
coast diminished in August, whereas in Pakistan and India, during
the 2nd half of August, >60 swarms and >17,220 nymphal bands
were detected.
During September, 1993, breeding in Sudan's Northern Kordof an (Fig. 3) resulted in an infestation of=50,OOO ha with gregarious
locusts. Desert locust activity in the breeding areas of northern Mali
and Niger (Fig. 2) was unknown, but egg laying occurred in southcentral Mauritania and >80 swarms were found there in the 1st half
of the month. In Pakistan and India, > 150 and> 100 swarms, respectively, were sprayed, and locust activity declined in the latter half of
the month.
AMEI\lCAN ENTOMOI.(l(;JST
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Table 1. Inrernationallocust
1992-1994 campaign
control organizations involved in the
Mandate
countries
Primary
targer pests
Desert Locust Control
Organizarion for East
Africa (DLCO-EA)
Djibouti
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Kenya
Somalia'
Sudan
Tanzania
Uganda
desert locust
60 vehicles
African migratory 25 trucks
locust
5 fwa
tree locust
Oh
armyworm
350 staff
quelea birds
Maghrebian Strike Force"
Algeria
Libya
desert locust
Organization
Mali
Mauritania
Morocco
Tunisia
Resources"
10 vehicles
16 trucks
fwa
o
Oh
68 staff
"Includes only vehicles, aircraft, and personnel. DLCO-EA data taken
30 June 1992 (USAID 1993b). Maghrebian Strike Force dara taken from
CLCPANO (1991) report. fwa, fixed wing aircraft; h, helicopter.
"The Maghrebian Strike Force was formed by CLCPANO using funds
from the Islamic Development Bank, FAO, Libya, and Tunisia (CLCPANO's member countries are Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and
Tunisia). It was staffed largely from CLCPANO member country crop
protection departments, but most Maghrebian Strike Force operations
were conducted in Mauritania and Mali, not a member of CLCPANO.
'DLCO-EA did not survey in Somalia until the fall of 1993 because of
armed conflict.
181
Indian
Ocean
Atlantic
Ocean
progression.
locust
African
migratory
locust
•
Kilometers
Fig. 3. Outbreak
Desert
1, fall 1992/winter
1993; 2, spring 1993; 3, summer 1993; 4, fall 1993/winter
Tree locust
1994; 5, spring 1994 (FAO 1994a,
PRIFAS 1993). Shading indicates known breeding and outbreak areas.
In October, the desert locust outbreak in central Mauritania expanded to northwestern Senegal and northwestern Mauritania, and
swarms were reported from southern Western Sahara. Gregarious
locusts were not detected elsewhere in the Sahel, Arabian Peninsula,
or Horn of Africa except for residual populations in Sudan's Northern Kordofan. Control operations contained a 2nd generation in
India and Pakistan.
Although the desert locust outbreak in southern and central
Mauritania was declining by November, the outbreak in western
and northern Mauritania persisted until February 1994 (1 small
swarm reached Cape Verde), and populations were suspected to
have bred in Western Sahara. Small swarms, presumably from Mauritania and Western Sahara, were found in southern Morocco until
March 1994. Also, swarms from northwest Senegal crossed into
Gambia and Guinea Bissau in February and March, but by the end
of February, gregarious locust activity had ceased elsewhere, with
the exception of the unconnected African migratory locust and red
locust outbreaks around Namibia's Caprivi Strip.
Survey and Control
Survey. Methods for detecting and eliminating gregarious locusts
are still in their developmental stages (USAID 1991, FAO/Emergency Center for Locust Operations [ECLO] 1993). Predictive models
that integrate African Real Time Environmental Monitoring and
Information System (ARTEMIS) satellite imagery and synoptic
weather data were employed, but they were not spatially exact or
timely enough to be of practical use for finding mobile swarms.
Vegetative index, or greenness maps, produced by National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite-based sensors
that capture relative quantities of green foliage? (Tappan et al.
1988), were not purchased for countries in East Africa.
182
Visual searches by ground and by air (FAO 1994b) were used for
locating locust aggregations and were conducted by national crop
protection services, the Desert Locust Control Organization for East
Africa (DLCO-EA, Table 1), the MaghrebianR Strike Force, and
FAO consultants (the Organization Commune de Lutte Antiacridienne et de Lutte Antiaviare for West Africa was not operational
during the desert locust recession, 1989-1992). Locust activity was
reported by various nomads, farmers, travelers, military personnel,
and police.
Survey efforts were often confounded by the mobility of swarms
in vast, remote terrain. Reports from neighboring governments,
however, gave many countries the advantage of being able to prepare for the arrival of swarms. The practical importance of accessible, up-to-date, inter-regional locust reporting suggests the need for
developing an on-line computer network system for this purpose.
Control. Spray operations occurred in 18 countries (Table 2).
The least toxic chemicals for locust control, mostly fenitrothion and
malathion in ultra-low volume (ULV) formulations9, were applied.
Organochlorine insecticides (for example, dieldrin and benzene
hexachloride [BHC]) were not used because of their persistence in
combination with their broad-spectrum effects (TAMS-Consortium
for International Crop Protection 1989, USAID 1991), except in
India and Pakistan where an apparent lack of alternative insecticides
and a need for rapid intervention precipitated their use until less
hazardous insecticides were made available (USAID 1993c, d). Operations against desert and African migratory locust usually were
conducted earlier than 0900 hours, before swarms took flight for
'Greenness maps do not locate swarms, but they aid in identifying areas potentially
favorable to locust breeding and aggregation.
'The "Maghreb" includes Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia.
9Deltamethrin,chlorpyrifos,
and dichlorvos also were applied mostly as ULV formu·
lations; in some cases, emulsfiable concentrate formulations of these insecticides were
used.
AMERICAN ENTOMOIJ)(;IST
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Table 2. Countries from which desert locust swarms were reported in
the fall 1992--early spring 1994 (FAOIECLO 1994)
Country
Algeria
Cape Verde
Chad~
Djibouti
Egypt
Eritrea'
Ethiopia
Gambia
Guinea Bissau
India
Mali~d
Estimated areas
sprayed, ha"
154
30
20,400
27,670
800
15
70
55
Country
Mauritania'
Morocco
Niger~d
Oman
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Somaliad
Sudan
Yemen
Estimated areas
sprayed, ha"
840,265
5,043
10,900
316,780
1,688,920
253,074
300
245,420
158,465
3.9 million
Total
-, no spraying.
"Based on country reports made to FAO/ECLO.
~Locust invasions occurred but were not sprayed.
'Some areas inaccessible because of land mines.
dCountries where locust survey and/or control were limited by armed
conflict.
the day. Dense nymphal bands were preferred targets because less
area required treatment and the winged mobility and reproductive
capability of adults were precluded.
Aside from limited spraying by farmers to protect crops, control
was conducted primarily by national crop protection services,
DLCO-EA, and the Maghrebian Strike Force. Operations involved
mostly exhaust nozzle (Steedman 1988) and micronaire sprayers,
both for ULV formulations, mounted on pickup trucks, small (single
engine) fixed wing aircraft, and helicopters (Dorow 1978, USAID
1989).
Control operations were initiated quickly against outbreaks, relative to the 1986-1989 campaign (OTA 1990, Showier and Potter
1991), and localized outbreaks mostly subsided within 1-2 generations. While climatic factors (Steedman 1988) played significant
roles in modulating the dynamic of the 1992-1994 outbreak at the
regional scale, it is possible that control operations made important
contributions toward containing the outbreak at the local level. The
outcome of the 1992-1994 locust control campaign provided
enough incentive for FAa, locust-affected countries, and donor
countries to seriously consider supporting a plan for an early intervention program against desert locust to be centered in the Red Sea
region. Technical and policy deliberations at the international level
on the possible implementation of such an early intervention program were initiated in late 1994 (Commission for Controlling the
Desert Locust in the Near East 1994) and continued at the Desert
Locust Control Committee's 33rd session in January 1995.10
Approaches to Control. Reactive. The 1986-1989 desert locust
campaign exemplified the reactive approach, but it is generally not
adopted by choice. In 1986-1987, an inability to effect early control
in key breeding areas permitted large scale swarm development,
migration, and breeding in other regions without disruption until a
plague had developed (OTA 1990, Showier and Potter 1991). Rapidity of the initial outbreak's evolution toward plague status, and
the subsequent magnitude of the plague, overwhelmed local and
national crop protection capabilities. Emergency operations began
in the latter half of 1987 (Appleby et al. 1989) to protect threatened
!Ill artended the donor country meeting with FAO on the Emergency Prevention
System plan in December 1994, and EMPRES was a major ropic of discussion at rhe 33rd
session of the Desert Locust Control Committee in January 1995, which I also attended.
AMERICAN ENTmIOl.m;IST
•
Fal/1995
Fig. 4. Size of locust habitat in Africa relative to continental
States.
United
croplands, but deployment of limited resources to protect agricultural areas precluded operations in remote Sahelian breeding areas
(Fig. 2; ShowIer and Potter 1991).
Proactive. The word proactive means early intervention to mitigate or avert further development of a problem. In the context of
locusts, proaction entails control operations that are conducted
against outbreaks (geographically localized swarm development)
before plague status is reached. Proaction relies heavily on early
detection of locust aggregations in breeding areas and strategic
prepositioning of resources (FAa 1994b).
Prevelttive. Ideally, locust control should occur at the onset of
gregarious behavior when locusts have amassed in small patches, no
more than several meters in diameter, in breeding areas. Success likely would require that a critical, but not yet determined, proportion
of these patches be controlled. Plague prevention will involve continuous and extensive locust surveys, including searches for egg pod
fields (Steedman 1988, USAID 1989) and prepositioning of resources (Appleby et al. 1989), and conceivably could rely on IPM tactics
to hold populations in recession indefinitely (Showier and Potter
1991).
Campaign Challenges. Funding. Locust infested countries, especially in the famine prone Sahel and Horn of Africa, were unable to
mount campaigns without donor assistance; also, some of these
countries were appealing for food aid because of drought, armed
conflict, and other agricultural pests. Insufficient funding and lag
time between requests for resources and the procurement and delivery of the resources were, at times, campaign weaknesses.
Terrain. Many locust breeding areas are located in vast (Fig. 4),
remote, and rugged terrain of the Sahara and the Horn of Africa.
Rapid deployment of resources is often problematic because of
harsh conditions, long distances, and poor infrastructure.
Conflict. Civil war in Somalia, Polisario guerrilla activity in
Western Sahara, and a Tuareg nomad rebellion in northern Mali and
northern Niger severely restricted or curtailed survey and control
operations. Northern Mauritania and northern Eritrea were mined.
Outcome. Proactive interventions, enabled by the absence of
armed conflict in Red Sea breeding areas, eliminated numerous
swarms before the outbreak had spread to other regions. The initial
outbreak of desert locust along the Red Sea coast eventually led to
major outbreaks in Mauritania and Senegal, and in India and Pakistan; both were contained and suppressed within 2-3 mo. The outbreaks in West Africa and along the India-Pakistan border, and
smaller outbreaks elsewhere, declined before major agricultural areas were invaded. During the 1986-1989 campaign, 25.9 million ha
were sprayed with insecticides (Gruys 1990, Schulten 1990) compared to 4 million ha treated during the 1992-1994 campaign; the
costs to donors were $300 million and $18.75 million,11respectively
183
(FAO/ECLO 1993, PANOS 1993). The ability of locust-afflicted
countries and regional locust control organizations to conduct proactive operations may have played an important role in the decline
of the outbreak by April 1994; 12 this has encouraged the interest of
donors, locust-afflicted
countries, and the FAO in pursuing the development of an early intervention plan for the Red Sea area.
Tree locust swarms from the Nile Valley in Sudan began invading
Eritrea in 1992 and this has continued to the present time. By April
1994, swarms had infested 7 of Eritrea's 9 crop protection districts,
but donor assistance for tree locust control was constrained by an
FAO/ECLO mandate limited to desert locust. An expanded multilateral vehicle for organizing donor assistance to help control other
major outbreak pests, for example, armyworm, Spodoptera exempta (Walker), and rodents (Meinzingen 1993), now is being contemplated by FAO (FAO 1994c).
Locust Management
for the Future
Working toward a goal of prevention using less toxic means,
donors have been funding research on remote sensing and global
information
systems for outbreak forecasting (Voss and Dreiser
1994), lise of insect growth regulators (Dorn et al. 1994). development of botanical compounds
as toxins or repellents (Langewald
and Schmutterer
1992, Wilps and Nasseh 1994), identification of
semiochemicals
to disrupt or manipulate locust behaviors (Hassanali and Mahamat
1991), and improvement
of insecticide formulations and application
technologies
(FAO/ECLO 1993). Also,
ecotoxicological
studies have been conducted in Morocco, Senegal,
and Sudan to examine the effects of antilocust insecticides on the
African environment
(Dynamac 1988, Keith 1992, Niassy et al.
1993).
Research on biological control has involved exploration for and
development
of biological control agents. Although studies on
Nosema locustae Canning have not demonstrated convincingly that
this protozoan would be useful for locust control in Africa (USAID
1991, Greathead 1992), International
Institute for Biological Control (HBC) research showed that Metarhizium flavoviride Gams, a
fungus, can cause >90% mortality against desert locust within 18 d
(Bateman et al. 1992). Small scale field trials conducted by Montana
State University (MSU) in Madagascar with a Malagasy strain of M.
flavoviride achieved similarly high mortality in L. migMtorioides
capito (Saussure) in 7 d (W. D. Swearingen, personal communication). Metarhizium allisopliae (Metschnikoff),
reported by BalfourBrown (1960) to have destroyed a locust swarm in Eritrea. may have
useful applications against locusts (Zimmermann
et al. 1994). Beauveria bassialla (Balsamo), another fungus, studied by MSU and Mycotech, caused >90% mortality among
Oedaleus sel1ega/eltsis
(Krauss) grasshoppers
in Cape Verde in 1992 and among African
migratory locusts in bioassays in Cape Verde in 1993 (W D. Swearingen, personal communication).
MSU has also initiated research on
the strategic lise of protozoa and viruses as long term regulators of
acridid populations
in Africa.
Preventive control will rely on diligent surveillance during plague
recessions, and as locusts become gregarious, intensified scouting
will be necessary to locate, then eliminate, enough locust aggregations to avert plagues. Ideally, a preventive approach would integrate enhanced survey methods with less toxic control tactics to
hold locust populations in recession indefinitely (FAO 1989, Showier and Potter 1991). Also, contingency emergency operation plans
will be necessary when preventive efforts fail or swarms invade from
"Estimatesare in 1994 dollars. Additionalbilateraland multilateralassistancesupporredlong-termresearchon locustforecastingand alternativesto syntheticinsecticides.
"Climatic conditions were mostly responsiblefor ending the 1986-1989 plague
(OTA 1990, Showierand Potter 1991).
184
countries where strong early intervention
programs are lacking.
FAO is developing a plan to establish a preventive locust control
program in the critically important Central Region (that is, the Horn
of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula) of the desert locust's distribution (FAO 1994c). If the plan is adopted, after review by donors and
locust-afflicted cOllntry governments, it could serve as a model for
similar, interrelated programs in the Western and Eastern regions
(that is, the Sahel and the Maghreb, and western Asia, respectively).
Acknowledgments
I thank Yeneneh Belayneh, Alan Schroeder, and Alise Laroche of the
African Emergency Locust/Grasshopper Assistance (AELGA) Project in
USAID's Africa Bureau for technical and administrative support; Peter Hobby of AMEX for computer graphics assistance; William Swearingen of
Montana State University in Bozeman, MT, for recent information on biocontrol research; the USAID Missions and national crop protection service
personnel in Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, India, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco,
Niger, Pakistan, Senegal, Sudan, and Yemen for provision of locust campaign information; and the staffs of FAOIECLO and DLCO-EA for locust
campaign situation reports. The views herein are those of the author and not
necessarily those of USAID. Contribution from the Missouri Agricultural
Experiment Station. Journal Series Number 12,136.
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Received
for publicatioll1
July 1994; accepted
3 March 1995.
•
Allan 1. Showier is the senior technical advisor for the African
Emergency LocusVGrasshopper Assistance (AELGA) Project in
the Disaster Response Coordination Office, Africa Bureau, U.S.
Agency for International Development, U.S. State Department
Building, Washington, DC 20523-0036. Showier has had strong
technical and coordinating roles during the 1986-1989 desert locust plague, the 1989-1991 New World screwworm fly eradication
program in Libya, and the 1992-1994 locust outbreak. He is an
assistant professor of the University of Missouri's Department of
Entomology. TheAELGA Project provides technical, financial, and
material assistance for the management of major pest outbreaks,
and develops strategies and tactics to prevent or mitigate them.
CO~lIHGTHIS SU~nIlR!
HANDBOOK OF
TURFCRASS
INSECT PESTS
A GROWER'S GUIDE TO
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Contents:
Turfgmss physiology
Turfgmss pest status in the U.S.
Detailed identification keys
Biting and stinging pests
Beneficial organisms
Pest management principles
Sampling and evaluation
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Unique control considerations
Insect/plant stress interactions
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Wecds and insect management
For more inConnation,
contact:
ESA Sales, 9301 AnnapoUs Road. Lanham, I\ID 20706
Phone: (301) 7314535; Fax: (301) 731-4538
E-Ma8: [email protected]
185