Farmers worry as Namibia battles locust outbreak

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is boosting Namibia’s locust surveillance and monitoring to avert a possible disaster.

According to the FAO, Namibia is currently battling its fourth and worst wave of brown locust outbreak.

The agriculture ministry has estimated that around 1.2 million hectares of cultivated fields have been infested by brown locusts in the Karas Region alone and it has already spilled over to the Hardap Region.

“Both regions are just emerging from a six-year harsh drought period that ended in 2019 and the outbreak of the locust is heavily affecting livelihoods and agricultural production,” according to the FAO.

A farmer from Aus, Johannes Muhenje, says he has never witnessed such large swarms of locusts in the 30 years that he has lived and reared animals in the Karas Region.

“The locusts have started feasting on the grass and trees near our cattle outposts and very soon if they are not brought under control nothing will be left for our livestock,” says Muhenje.

Eddy Kooper, a small-scale farmer at Constantia 2, a livestock outpost, also expressed fear of what lies ahead if the locusts are not controlled.

“It’s a dire situation; we hope that the government can bring it under control and salvage the remaining grass so that our livestock do not starve during the winter period,” he said.

The FAO also noted that brown locust masses on roads have made roads in the region very slippery and dangerous.

According to the organisation, locust-related accidents have become frequent and several people have lost their lives in these accidents.

Scaling up surveillance

The FAO says to avert a crisis it has been at the forefront of supporting the Namibia through the agriculture ministry in its monitoring and surveillance activities to boost the locust control efforts on the ground.

The FAO, through a project titled ‘African Migratory Locust Response to Mitigate Impacts on Food Security and Livelihoods’, is servicing 22 vehicles carrying out monitoring and control efforts. This support enables personnel on the ground to survey large tracts of land infested by locusts and to carry out locust control interventions.

So far, the ministry has managed to survey 2.119 million hectares across the country.

“Surveillance and control can be a challenge in such a large region such as //Karas but we are trying our very best each day,” said Llewellyn Muenjo, the ministry’s chief agricultural technician in Karas, who is leading a surveillance and control team on the ground.

“We are hopeful that with strong stakeholder collaboration, such as that with FAO, we can overcome this threat and be able to avert a full-blown disaster,” he added.

Additionally, FAO has facilitated training of 348 farmers and 158 technical staff on the eLocust3m mobile application.

Locust outbreaks in Namibia

During February 2020 the first wave of the African Migratory Locust (AML) was reported in north-eastern in the Zambezi and Kavango East and West regions.

This was followed by a second wave which was reported in August 2020, covering the north-eastern as well as north-central regions of Kunene, Ohangwena, Oshana, Omusati and Oshikoto.

In March 2021, a third wave was reported and this comprised of AML and Red Locust – to a lesser extent – in the aforementioned areas, and Brown Locust in the southern parts.

During that period, it was reported that over 2 000 hectares of cropland and more than 700 000 hectares of grazing fields were negatively impacted by the locusts.