Training series on the response to locust outbreaks

With the aim of strengthening national capacities and improving the response to locust outbreaks, a series of national training sessions on locust monitoring and information management, locust spraying and pesticide risk reduction, the use of the Automated System of Data Collection (ASDC), and biopesticides against locusts are held between December 2024 and January 2025 with support from the regional project funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) “Improvement of locust management (Phase 2)” implemented as part of the FAO programme to improve national and regional locust management in the Caucasus and Central Asia. The training sessions are conducted in close cooperation with the project counterpart, the State Entity "Locust Control Expedition" of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Tajikistan in Sughd and Khatlon regions, as well as in the Districts of Republican Subordination. A total of three sessions are organized, four-days each.

Locusts and grasshoppers are serious threats for agriculture in Caucasus and Central Asia. Three locust pests, the Italian, the Moroccan and the Migratory locusts, jeopardize food security and livelihoods in both regions as well as in adjacent areas of northern Afghanistan and southern Russian Federation. Over 25 million hectares of cultivated areas are potentially at risk.