NO CAUSE FOR ALARM?
Views vary on the potential impact of the aerial spraying on these useful insects.
Dr Muo Kasina, chairman of the Entomological Society of Kenya told the Star there is no cause for alarm.
“The current model of application and formulation of pesticides being used has minimal negative effects,” Kasina said.
He said ultra-low volume oil-based formulations and atomisation of the molecules are being used.
“It is difficult to control locust plagues using other means. The first approach is to suppress their population with pesticides, then follow with bio-control and use various methods for hopper bands,” Kasina said.
Another locust expert, Dr Christian Kooyman, said the locust situation is pretty serious this year.
This, he said, is not only in Kenya but in the whole Horn of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and up to Southern Asia.
Dr Kooyman is retired, but he is one of the world’s experts on locusts and worked on their control for many years.
He worked at ICIPE and was involved in the development of a bio-pesticide for locusts that is very effective against the hoppers.
Dr Kooyman said there is a biological pesticide by the name Novacrid. The pesticide, however, works too slowly to stop the swarms from flying for another 10 days.
Dr Kooyman said when faced with swarms of flying locusts, there is no real alternative to spraying chemicals. He said it is very effective against the hoppers, the non-flying locust larvae, because they do not go far before dying.
“I would recommend the use of that product in Kenya,” he said.
Dr Kooyman said the government has no choice but to spray chemicals. “We can only hope that they choose the ones that are least damaging,” he said.
“Of course, where they spray, the other insects will suffer, including bees and other pollinators. And that is a great pity.”
Dr Kooyman said it is obvious the government was not prepared when the first swarms entered the country.
“It had not heeded the warnings issued by the FAO. I guess they did not expect this level of invasions,” he said.
Dr Kooyman said after the 1940s, when the last major invasion occurred, only a few swarms entered Kenya every 10 years or so.
He suggests the affected countries in the Horn stockpile suitable pesticides for future locust outbreaks with an agreement that they can be quickly moved to whichever countries need them the most.
“One of the products should, of course, be the biological one for eliminating hopper bands,” he said.
Desert locusts may be nymphs, also called hoppers, or they may be winged adults.
They may be in solitarious phase (dull-coloured and living individually) or in the gregarious phase (contrasting colouration and tending to gather in groups).
Gregarious groups of nymphs are called hopper bands and large groups of adults are called swarms.
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