Online Refresher Courses on locust monitoring and information management, including the Automated System for Data Collection (ASDC) and the Caucasus and Central Asian Locust Management System (CCALM), as well as pesticide risk reduction, are being delivered to all CCA countries as part of the Locust Programme in CCA. They target Plant Protection/Locusts Experts, especially Master-Trainers who can in turn deliver training at the national level. So far, the courses have been delivered to Kyrgyzstan (October 2020), Georgia (December 2020), Afghanistan (January 2021), Turkmenistan (early February 2021) and they will follow for the other countries, mainly from February to April 2021. They are carried out thanks to the projects funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and by the FAO Technical Cooperation Programme (TCP).

The new “Project for Improvement of Locust Management (Phase 2)” was launched on 1st December 2020 at the occasion of the first Project Steering Committee. Representatives of all main stakeholders were present: the six beneficiary Central Asian countries - Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan; the resource partner, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA); and FAO, in charge of its implementation. This five-year project, of USD 7,5 million, is expected to provide substantial support for improving locust management through regional cooperation and strengthening of technical capacities on a wide range of topics, including for the operational use of the locust Geographical Information System (GIS) entitled CCALM. While the immediate beneficiaries are the national services in charge of locust management, the ultimate beneficiaries of the assistance will be the rural populations living in the locust-affected areas, whose food security and livelihoods will be preserved through better prevention of locust outbreaks and upsurges. Best wishes to all for a successful implementation of this new project! 

The Technical Workshop on Locusts in CCA was successfully held in November, as every year since 2009 but for the first time remotely. It gathered the participating countries in the FAO “Programme to improve national and regional locust management in the Caucasus and Central Asia (CCA)”, the Programme current resource partners -the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)- as well as a large number of observers, including from China and Iran. The workshop allowed discussing: lessons learnt from the 2020 national anti-locust campaign and preparation of the next one; implementation of the Programme in 2020 and work plan for 2021; the latest developments regarding the Geographical Information System (GIS) entitled “Caucasus and Central Asia Locust Management System” (CCALM); risk reduction associated with locust control operations; as well as new projects and resource mobilization. 

A Refresher Course on locust monitoring and information management, including the Automated System for Data Collection (ASDC) and the Caucasus and Central Asian Locust Management System (CCALM), as well as pesticide risk reduction, was delivered on 5 and 26-30 October 2020, to the benefit of seven Kyrgyz Master-Trainers, by FAO staff and consultant. This will allow the Master-Trainers to deliver in turn training to other staff at the national level, in November 2020. This Training-of-Trainers is funded by the FAO Technical Cooperation Programme (TCP). For the first time in CCA Locust Programme, it was delivered remotely to cope with the current pandemics and proved to be functioning well. It is intended to be the first of a series of training to be delivered by FAO to the benefit of CCA countries in late 2020/early 2021.

These Practical Guidelines contain detailed information on the biology, ecology, and behavior of the Italian Locust, the Moroccan locust and the Asian Migratory Locust. These comprehensive and at the same time accessible material is intended primarily for locust and plant protection experts in CCA countries as well as for scientists, students and a wide range of readers. The Guidelines are authored by Mr Alexandre Latchininsky, FAO Agricultural Officer/Locust Management. They are available in Russian while the English version will be published in the near future. They are the second volume of a set of Practical Guidelines published in the framework of the FAO “Programme to improve national and regional locust management in Caucasus and Central Asia (CCA)”, the other being on locust control and pesticides risk reduction in CCA.

The “Project for Improvement of Locust Management (Phase 2)” was signed in late July 2020 between FAO and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to the benefit of six Central Asian countries, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. This five-year project, of USD 7.2 million, is expected to provide substantial support for improving locust management through regional cooperation and strengthening of technical capacities on a wide range of topics, including for the operational use of the locust Geographical Information System (GIS) entitled CCALM. While the immediate beneficiaries are the national services in charge of locust management, the ultimate beneficiaries of the assistance will be the rural populations living in the locust-affected areas, whose food security and livelihoods will be preserved through better prevention of locust outbreaks and upsurges. This project is a continuation and expansion of a Japan/JICA funded-project (Phase 1), successfully implemented by FAO in 2015-2019 to the benefit of Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.  

A Webinar on the development of the current Locust situation globally, in CCA and the Russian Federation was organized by the FAO Liaison Office with the Russian Federation on 23 June 2020, with the participation of the Russian Agricultural Center and to the attention of locust experts and partners. This follows the grant of USD 10 million made available by the Russian Federation, through FAO, for the current Desert Locust crisis in Eastern Africa. The webinar allowed addressing the Desert Locust emergency and FAO response, the locust situations in CCA and the related Programme to improve national and regional locust management, as well as locust management in the Russian Federation, among other. More information can be found at: http://www.fao.org/russian-federation/news/detail-events/en/c/1295527/

The 2020 locust campaign has started one month earlier than last year. Survey and control operations are ongoing in all countries despite the sanitary situations related to COVID-19. However, the campaign may be negatively affected in some countries, including by a reduction of available funding. An emergency project, funded by the FAO Technical Cooperation Programme, was approved to the benefit of Kyrgyzstan in this context. Activities of the overall locust Programme in CCA are ongoing, although a few had to be postponed or cancelled due to travel restrictions associated with COVID-19.

The Workshop on locust information analysis, forecasting and reporting in Caucasus and Central Asia (CCA) was held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on 11-12 November 2019, with the participation of the ten countries involved in the Programme. It was followed by the Technical Workshop on Locusts in CCA, also in Tashkent, on 13-15 November 2019. During the workshops, the delegates discussed the Programme activities in 2019, the work plan for 2020 and the developments of Automated System for Data Collection (ASDC) and Caucasus and Central Asia Locust Management System (CCALM), which are now available in most CCA countries. 

A regional session of the FAO Training on locust monitoring and information management, including the Automatic System of Data Collection (ASDC) and the Caucasus and Central Asia Locust Management System (CCALM) took place in Uzbekistan, in the picturesque village of Yusufhona on the banks of the Charvak reservoir (90 km northeast of Tashkent). The training was attended by four Turkmen and 12 Uzbek specialists who studied the bio-ecology of locusts, methods of density assessment and using the innovative ASDC software to collect and analyze field information on locusts. For these purposes, FAO purchased and distributed tablet computers to the training participants. The training was organized thanks to the project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).