Plague of locusts sweeping across the Sahel

A plague of locusts is sweeping across the Sahel region of north-west Africa, leaving in its wake a trail of decimated crops in Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Senegal.

The infestations of the desert locust are thought to be the most widespread and damaging for 15 years.

After the last locust invasion, an early warning system was set up by UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation to stop the same thing happening again.

The second wave of locusts this year is expected to take to the skies over Mauritania, perhaps as early as next week. Experts are now warning that up to a quarter of this year's harvests in the region could be destroyed, causing a severe food crisis.

Twelve African governments have declared a war on the locusts and have mobilised their armies to spray the locusts and crops with pesticides. But environmentalists worry about the long-term effect of these pesticides.

Pictures of the locust swarms

BBC Africa Live is asking:

What's gone wrong? Do politicians see this as a poor person's problem? Is there not enough long-term planning in Africa?

This debate is now closed. Thank you for taking part.

Your comments:

Giant locust traps should have been set at the source to harness these locusts. They would then have been sold to bio tech power plants around the world. Instead of crying we instead should have been happy and pray for more locusts. This is a great money making opportunity Africa has missed.
Fionbi Sololmon, Cameroonian/OKU/USA

I was in Southern Morrocco a few years ago when there was a locust plague. The local population were feasting on toasted locusts on the principle that if the locusts had eaten their crops, they may as well eat the locusts. Poison the locusts and you may well poison the people.
Tony Brett, Hinckley, UK

I believe there is only one way and one way only to solve this. HAVE A LOCUST KILLING DAY!!!
Anon, London

One shuddres at the thought of natural disasters like hurricane Ivan hitting the coast of Africa; the effect would be utter confusion and total destruction. Personally I don't subscribe to the escapist view that africa doesn't have the resources to manage its disasters; after all cuba which has a minuscule percentage of africa's resources was on its toes ready for Hurricane Ivan when it came calling. .
Thomas Ayeni, Lagos, Nigeria

This problems is certanly not a poor person's problem! This is a natural phenomena that needs to be planned for and prepared for. Once again this reveals one of the disabilities of africa and that is planning.i appeal to the international world to give necessary assisttance to fight the locusts.
Edmund Agorhom, Harare Zimbabwe

It is easy for a citizen of a thriving western country to claim how dangerous pesticides are etc. Unfortunately this seems self-indulgent and rather self-righteous since no-one has come up with a better plan then I seriously believe that we need to spray as many pesticides as possible and save as many lives as we possibly can. The long term effects will no doubt be negligible but surely we should cross that bridge once all that is possible is done at the present.
Anne, London, England

Its unfortunate that though some countries called for help, they did not receive the help and therefore this disaster. Probabaly President Bush should have included these locusts in his terrorist group and given some aid to fight them.
George Osei, Accra,Ghana

In Africa government programs are often not diligently implemented. In many cases funds meant for such programmes are often corruptly diverted for personal benefit. Another problem is that very often political appointees rather than technically competent people are often placed in charge of such programmes rendering them almost useless.
Jupiter Punungwe, Zimbabwe

While corruption undoubtedly goes on and bureaucratic red tape and lack of resource slows responses, there are many people who work very hard to protect those most affected. I know from my own experience how happy people are to see you when you come to their area to spray pesticides and save their crops. The sad reality is that however hard you work you can only ever reach a tiny percentage of the affected regions. The pesticides used today are a lot safer than those used before (e.g. dieldrin) but there are some whose use is questionable (e.g. fipronil) on environmental safety grounds.
Donald Coppen, Wokingham, GB

I think we need to move swiftly and spray and kill these ravaging insects.
Ngwenya, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

Now the enemy is not a human it is an animal which wants to kill humans we don't need any resolution of the UN to go to war against this plague.
Bouyagui Sidibe, Nouakchott-Mauritania

I really think that those Countries where the plague started should be blamed for all these locust crises. If they took good actions the plague would have not reached this magnitude. This shows that the World is a global village. Anything that happens somewhere can affect life elsewhere.
Mustapha Kah, Serrekunda, Gambia

The locusts are out of control because we have altered our environment for so long, we should therefore let nature have a field day. However, it greaves my heart that after prior warning from WHO, our Presidents are still groppling in the dark as to what to do. What a pity!
Joel Ikechukwu Ojiakor, Lagos, Nigeria

What went wrong? Insufficient monitoring in poor and sparsely populated areas of the world allowed this to begin; poor judgement and inadequate tools have allowed it to continue. I don't know how the politicians see it, or the true status of planning in Africa, but we do need better monitoring and better tools to prevent this happening again. As for stopping it now, all that's clear to me is that more needs to be done. Somehow.
Paddy Woodburn, London, England

Eat the locusts, it is good for you!
E O Mustafa, Canada

Tamree, now that is funny. As an African I know we blame westerners for just about everything but your version is just ridiculous.
Felo, USA

I think these latest locusts are manufactured in western factories to starve the African population.
Tamree, Sweden

The use of pesticides can only be for emergencies. It destroys our productive environments and leaves us in another dilemma in life's struggle.
Ngobei L.Shamata, Arusha,Tanzania

With clear policies in place, awareness and research on better ways to destroy these locusts, without interfering too much with the environment, -- and, of course, financial and technical support from whatever quarter and teamwork, this problem can be curbed.
Tom Mogaka, Bayonne, New Jersey

I can see that the African politicians are ignoring the outbreak of locust by putting their dream of power hunger and money ahead of everything. I think that politicians deserve to be blamed for not putting money on the locust research projects.
Thabor Ding, Sudanese/USA

Any means that can be use to get them out of Africa must be applied to save human lives as early as possible before it's too late. But I am strongly of the view that these locusts might be coming into Africa because they may be following that so-called genetically modified food.
Stephen S.M. Bendah, Liberia/Ghana

The locusts that are invading Africa are of no difference than the cicadas that invaded the United States a couple of months ago. I don't see any scientific ways to get rid of this massive flying mother nature -- other than they will disappear just the way they disappeared in the United States. So why cry so much about it? It's just mother nature.
Prince Kargbo, Sierra Leone/Maryland, USA.

How can the politicians control the locusts when what they target is their Swiss bank accounts. Shame.
Eugene, Buea, Cameroon

It's quite unfortunate that Africa keeps experiencing the same problem every year.The solutions are solved more on the news than in reality. The reality is that the money for solving such problems are almost always diverted to private pockets of government business men.
George Onmonya Daniel, Lagos, Nigeria

Let nature take its course, for we have done enough altering to our little planet and have still to find another one to move to.
Frank, Oxford, UK

If African governments had prepared adequately weeks back when the warning came through, the effects of this invasion would have been mitigated. Our problem in Africa is that our priorities are often misplaced.
Chukwudi, Lagos, Nigeria

The use of pesticides in this modern era could be the most unwise thing to do. Chemical control has, for many years, been an environmental risk. Modern genetic engineering methods could provide a wise and natural means of handling such crisis. All Africa needs is to embrace and fund gene technology.
Kimbi Tchenga, Biotech Unit, University of Buea, Cameroon

Locusts control is a regional responsibility rather than for just one country. Therefore it is very important to give the control and monitoring of locusts top priority in our agricultural development planning.
Yahia Omar Adam Gumaa, Khartoum, Sudan

If you ban the pesticides that control the locusts on the basis of flawed and inaccurate environmentalist propaganda, this sort of thing will inevitably happen. It seems, though, that western environmentalist sanctimoniousness is more important than the lives of millions of Africans. Why am I not surprised?
Euan Gray, Edinburgh, UK

The 'I don't care' attitude of our governments, who are not directly affected, has caused the increase of the locust.
Kaliboi Sidi, Kaduna, Nigeria

African, American, and European Governments have a disaster response mentality, rather than a disaster prevention mentality.
John Adams, Bolivar, US (formerly Senegal)

If breeding points are marked surely they then know the breeding time. They should collectively spray those areas and kill all the locust or at least female ones.
Thabo, Maseru, Lesotho

Like most other calamities, man-made or natural, this heavily hinges on the economic ability for Africa to forecast, prevent and rebuild after such events. As long as we do not have the capacity to be self sustainable, we shall never conquer!
Gabriel, Lusaka, Zambia

Africa must not always rely on the international community. If attentions were diverted from locusts issue, it's because of the war on Iraq and the trouble in the Darfur region. If all this didn't happen, the UN would meet its commitments
Ngomdum, Douala, Cameroon

Africans should go back to the drawing table and embrace more scientific and technological means of dealing with issues such as the plague of locusts. If the source of breeding is scientifically dealt with, then the problem would be brought down to its bare minimum.
Christian Merenini, Lagos, Nigeria