Locust outbreaks in 2019-20 in East Africa and West Asia have been the worst in decades. They have already wiped out massive amounts of crops, vast swathes of pasture. The sheer size of swarms and the sheer amount of food they devour within a matter of hours is triggering hunger crises—from Kenya and Ethiopia to Pakistan and India, and even Argentina most recently. In East Africa alone, 19 million are at risk of a much bigger crisis if the infestation continues unabated.
The 1st Virtual Practitioners Conference on Desert Locust Management 2020, hosted by TheWaterChannel and supported by a number of partner organisations, brought together professionals working at the frontline of the locust crisis across the world. They presented and discussed the nature of the problem as experienced at global and local levels, and the solutions most likely to contain the ongoing outbreaks and control future crises.
Following are the recordings of the various sessions:
Key Note: Desert Locust Outbreak- Causes, Patterns, Effects (Keith Cressman, Senior Locust Forecasting Officer, FAO)
Locust Outbreaks in East Africa and the Regional Desert Locust Alliance (RDLA) (Francesca Sangiorgi, ACTED)
The 2020 Locust Attacks in India (Ishan Kukreti, Down to Earth)
Swarm Modelling (Kit Yates, University of Bath)
Collecting Locusts for Poultry Feed (Mohammed Khurshid, Pakistan Ministry of National Food Security & Research)
Locust Outbreaks in Sindh, Pakistan (Aftab Akhund, RDF Pakistan)
Using Power of the Crowd to track Locusts (Demonstrating eLocust3) (David Hughes, Penn State University)
Community based Surveillance (Matthew Cousins, OXFAM UK)
Alternative Treatment of Gregarious Locusts (Manfred Hartbauer, University of Graz, Austria)
Looking for a bacteriophage based biopesticide (Willem van Holthe and Eline Doornebal, iGEM Team, TU Delft)
Predicting Desert Locust Breeding Grounds (Emily Kimathi, icipe)
Acridid outbreaks: working across boundaries, sectors, and disciplines to find solutions (Arianne Cease, Global Locust Initiative, Arizona University)
Locust Outbreak and Response in Kitui, Kenya (Susan Nguku, Water and Livestock Dept , Ministry of Agriculture, Kitui County, Kenya)
The Conference was supported by:
