The new equipment were transferred to Kakheti region and tested under field conditions. This is part of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)'s ongoing programme on locust management in the Caucasus and Central Asia implemented with USAID financial assistance. The equipment include four vehicles, entomological kits, binoculars, GPS, tablets, and computers, among others. 

The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), QU Dongyu, visited Mauritania's National Centre for Desert Locust Control today as part of a two-day visit to the northwestern African country. 

The Director-General was accompanied by Mauritania's Minister of Agriculture, His Excellency Umm Ould Bibateh, who underscored the importance of the visit in opening up promising horizons in the longstanding cooperation between Mauritania and FAO.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has called for ‘’robust coordination’’ between countries and regions in efforts to prevent and combat the scourge of desert locusts. “Desert locust – as migratory pest – cannot be controlled by one single country or one single entity,” FAO Deputy Director-General Beth Bechdol told participants at a high-level webinar today.

Experts at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) have called on countries to invest in prevention measures against the Banana Fusarium Wilt caused by Tropical Race 4 (TR4) as it is key to control and delay the spread of the disease into new areas.  

Lack of appropriate locust monitoring and preparedness has been identified as major constraints that affect desert locust management. Other challenges include inaccessibility of some regions by vehicles or field officers due to lack of roads, difficult terrains, and insecurity.

Banana cultivation in Tanzania is being threatened by the presence of the banana bunchy top disease (BBTD) first detected in 2020 in Kigoma region. The disease is widespread in susceptible cultivars in eleven major banana-growing regions: Arusha, Dar es Salaam, Dodoma, Geita, Katavi, Kigoma, Kilimanjaro, Mbeya, Morogoro, Mwanza, and Pwani.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) conducted intensive training in desert locust survey and reporting for locust officers from Sudan, Uganda, and Ethiopia. This training was a follow up of a regional Training of Trainers course on desert locust survey and reporting techniques held last year.

 

Modern technology has much to offer for effective desert locust monitoring and control. This includes surveillance drones and their accompanying infrastructure technology, such as the system for data collection in the field and RAMSES (Reconnaissance And Management System of the Environment of Schistocerca), which is a custom software application comprising a database and a Geographic Information System (GIS) that stores the georeferenced results of survey and control operations.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) delivered a module on locust morphology and taxonomy to students of the master’s in Acridology at the Institut Agronomique et Vétérinaire Hassan II (IAV) in Agadir, Morocco.

The course aimed to reinforce the knowledge of the first-year master’s students on the morphological features of insects, with a focus on acridids (locusts and grasshoppers) so that they can identify them at different stages of their development. The two-year master's programme will equip the field technicians with skills to implement sustainable preventive measures against locusts. 

In response to the outbreak of the coconut rhinoceros beetle in Majuro, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has taken action to mitigate the impact of the pest on food security and the livelihoods of the population.

The Marshall Islands government declared a state of emergency after discovering the beetle on the islands in September 2023.  

Continuous communication should be maintained during recession and locust crisis periods to increase awareness and mitigate impacts and protect livelihoods. The message was echoed at the just concluded Communication training workshop for Communication focal points from Algeria...

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has announced the official launch of SusaHamra, a new mobile application and online platform designed to combat the devastating Red Palm Weevil (RPW). This pioneering system marks a significant step forward in the fight against this invasive pest that threatens date palms, coconut palms, and ornamental palms worldwide.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations (FAO) conducted a regional training on locust survey and reporting techniques for locust officers from breeding and invasion countries, Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda.

The training of trainers targeted locust master trainers who will be able to transfer the skills and knowledge to their peers in their respective countries to conduct proper locust survey, monitoring and use proper reporting techniques.

When the desert locust upsurge of 2019-2022 occurred in Kenya, Esbon Agira, was deployed as a base manager in Marsabit County, north of the country. His work involved surveying desert locusts and provided information to the locust control operation teams. “Before the desert locust invasion, we were not prepared as a country. The last time Kenya faced the locust invasion of that magnitude was 70 years ago. There were thus no dedicated experts in desert locust management, and we lacked appropriate equipment and adequate pesticides to conduct control operations,” says Esbon.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is conducting a 5-day training workshop for technical officers in charge of desert locust control from East Africa and the Middle East, aimed to enhance preparedness of their countries to effectively respond to desert locust outbreaks and invasions.

Participants to the desert locust contingency planning workshop have been drawn from both breeding and invasion countries, and these include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Somalia, Syria, and Uganda. 

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) welcomes the Federal Government of Somalia to the Commission for Controlling the Desert Locust in the Central Region (CRC) as its 17^th member.

Somalia's geographical location, historical significance in locust control, and contributions to the Locust Central Region Commission make it a crucial player in combating locusts in the Horn of Africa. Its membership in the CRC is a strategic step that will help to improve locust control efforts in the region.

Bishkek – The 13th annual Technical Workshop on Locust Management is being held under the “FAO’s Programme to Improve National and Regional Locust Management in the Caucasus and Central Asia (CCA)”. The workshop is organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in close cooperation with the Ministry of the Agriculture of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan, with the financial support of the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). It gathers delegates from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, as well as FAO experts and observers. It is the third time that Kyrgyzstan has hosted such an important workshop, since the start of the Programme in 2011.

Postgraduate students from ten different countries learned about the latest locust control strategies and FAO's early warning systems for transboundary plant pests at a recent seminar at CIHEAM-IAMB. The seminar was also a chance to discuss the Aral Sea Catastrophe and whether it could be reversed.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is supporting the government of the Comoros to develop a national Action Plan to manage the banana Fusarium wilt (TR4) disease. The country confirmed the first case of banana Fusarium wilt (TR4) on Grande Comore Island early this year.