The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and Somalia have recently strengthened their partnership to scale up local capacities, surveillance and control operations to combat the desert locust upsurge.
FAO Director-General QU Dongyu has welcomed a $10 million donation from Mastercard Foundation to step up the fight against the desert locust outbreak in East Africa amid concern about an imminent upsurge in numbers.
While the eyes of the world are on the novel coronavirus, East Africa continues to struggle with another crisis of biblical proportions: growing swarms of ravenous locusts.
As part of the programme to enhance the livelihood opportunities of smallholders, FAO Syria has been assisting 700 producers in the country to improve the quality and quantity of their vegetable production through nurseries that utilize low tunnels to produce seedlings, which will ultimately be transplanted in fields.
An estimated one million people in Ethiopia are in need of emergency food assistance due to the ongoing desert locust invasion, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has warned.
Dominique Burgeon, Director of FAO's Emergency and Resilience Division, explains the particular challenges COVID-19 poses in vulnerable communities already coping with high levels of hunger due to pre-existing crises -- and how the Organization is gearing up to help.
East Africa is going through a massive desert locust infestation that’s stripping farming families of food and income and threatening the food security of millions throughout the region.