Namibia is currently fighting the third locust outbreak in the Karasburg District, Karas Region in the southern parts of the country, Namibia’s Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry spokesperson Jonah Musheko said in a statement on Thursday.
The first outbreak was reported on September 21, 2021, by a commercial farmer and a team was immediately dispatched. Unfortunately, they could not trace, Musheko said.
“The initial control commenced on November 3, 2021, in the Karasburg district and by then, the infested area was estimated at approximately 800,000 hectares of farmland, and over 240,000 ha surveyed with approximate 2,000 ha treated/sprayed,” he added.
According to Musheko, since mid-December 2021, the ministry has been detecting swarms of brown locusts and spraying teams have been dispatched and are in the field to date.
Control operations are continuing against a limited number of small immature swarms in northeast Somalia that formed last month from local breeding. During the last week of December, a few swarms probably migrated towards the southwest and reached the edge of the Rift Valley in southern Ethiopia where they were reported on the 28–29th. Since then, there have been no signs of additional migration towards southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya. Elsewhere, low numbers of solitarious adults are present along both sides of the Red Sea where winter breeding has started in Yemen and southeast Egypt.
The control operations carried out in northeast Somalia during the past month have dramatically reduced the number of swarms that formed in the past three weeks. Nevertheless, a few immature swarms are still present in the northeast where they are likely to remain a bit longer than expected because local winds are concentrating them between Garowe, Las Anod, and Erigavo and delaying their anticipated migration south-westwards across eastern Ethiopia to the border of Kenya. As conditions are drying out in northern Somalia, limited swarm movement is still expected to occur. If any swarms reach the Kenya/**Ethiopia** border, easterly and southeasterly winds are likely to carry them towards the Rift Valley in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia, preventing movement further south into central Kenya.
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