Swarms of desert locusts, caused by cyclones due to warming ocean temperatures, are devastating East Africa and the most apparent solutions only spell further long-term climate damage. 

Since the end of January of this year, swarms of locusts have overwhelmed nations in East Africa: devouring crops, ruining livelihoods and pushing communities to the brink of famine. Locusts are relatives of grasshoppers that tend to travel in swarms; according to the National Geographic, a desert locust can eat its entire weight in plant material each day. Given the size of the swarm currently plaguing East Africa, the locusts are consuming an estimated 423 million pounds of plants daily. Photos depict waves of locusts so thick they appear to be clouds, and farmers are relying on methods such as shaking jars full of rocks and rolling tires through fields in attempts to scare the locusts away from crops, to little avail. 

Climate scientists trace this swarm back to a series of cyclones that saturated the Arabian desert during 2018. As locusts breed in warm, wet conditions, the desert rain storms created a breeding ground for millions of locusts that eventually crossed the Red Sea into the Horn of Africa. Another cyclone touching down in Somalia at the end of 2019 added force to the growing onslaught of locusts. Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia first bore the brunt of the swarms, but the locusts quickly began to migrate into neighboring Uganda and Tanzania, and they have since reached Sudan and South Sudan. 

As the rainy season will begin in East Africa in late March 2020, the locust population only stands to increase exponentially. Over 20 million individuals in East Africa face the very real threat of famine should the devastation continue, and the spread of the swarms proves destabilizing to nations such as South Sudan, still reeling from violence and internal political conflict since 2013. The threat of the crop damage spirals even beyond the agricultural and livestock industries: the Kenyan government worries that damage to national parks and the herbivores that inhabit them could ruin the tourism industry, as well.  

The sudden occurrence of desert locust swarms points to dire climate circumstances, both in its origin and impact. First, temperature in the Indian Ocean fluctuates along the Indian Ocean Dipole, and the Western segment of the ocean was uncharacteristically warm this year--likely due to the fires in Australia--producing the cyclones in Yemen and Somalia. Moreover, the most apparent solution to the swarms is aerial pesticide spraying, which, while immediately attractive in the face of crop devastation and famine, itself carries climate implications which could spiral years into the future. Fipronil, the pesticide most commonly used against locusts swarms, has been linked directly to unprecedented rates of bee mortality, which would have significant long term effects on the East African ecosystem. Moreover, pesticides, especially when used in massive quantities, can pollute water supplies by absorption into the groundwater and by runoff into surface water supplies.  

Given the urgency and scale of the crisis, aerial pesticide spraying may be the only viable, albeit imperfect, option available to disaster relief. The World Food Programme Executive Director, David Beasley, darkly foretold that should the adequate disaster prevention aid not be raised immediately, the international community could face a disaster response that would cost upwards of $1 billion. While the UN Food and Agriculture Organization has raised $22 million to allocate towards prevention and relief efforts, this is only a fraction of the $76 million for which it originally appealed.