Goals

• Improved surveying and forecasting methods.
• Reduction and, if possible, replacement of hazardous pesticide usage.
• Better understanding of the economics of Desert Locust management.
• Improved coordination of Desert Locust research.
• Transfer of research results into operational practices.

Major research efforts were initiated by donors and executed by research institutes and projects afer the last Desert Locust plague. These were and are aimed at understanding the environmental impact of locust control methods, at identifying alternative, more environmentally benign control agents and at reducing the need for chemical control by improving forecasting, monitoring and survey methodologies.

Significant advances have already been made in areas like elucidating the biological and ecological processes leading to gregarisation, developing biological control agents, increasing the safety of chemical control to humans and the environment or monitoring Desert Locust breeding areas by remote sensing.

Some of these research results have been translated into practical use or are likely to become operational in the next years. Other research avenues, like the development of control methods based on biological mycopesticides have reached an advanced stage of field testing. Still other research results hold considerable promise for future developments, like for example the discovery of new compounds (semio-chemicals) which can influence the behaviour of locusts in extremely low concentrations.

While most of the above research is supported bilaterally, EMPRES monitors the progress achieved and promotes in particular field trials and studies of immediate relevance to improved monitoring and control.