Billions of locusts have infested East Africa. USAID is working to control the outbreak now to help mitigate future impacts.

Sven Torfinn/FAO

Key Developments

USAID is responding to the worst locust outbreak in East Africa in decades, providing more than $24 million to scale up pest control operations through direct interventions and local capacity building in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia. Control operations include ground and aerial pest control, training pest control experts and scouts, and providing protective equipment - all critical to preventing a potentially larger impact on crops and pastures, which people rely on to feed their families.  

FAO expects desert locust infestations to persist across Ethiopia and Somalia through at least March 2021. 

Yemen remains a reservoir for desert locust breeding, posing a continued threat to the Horn of Africa region.

Widespread breeding in Red Sea coastal areas of Eritrea and Sudan will substantially increase infestations in Eritrea in particular. 

Since January, control operations have prevented 1.5 million MT of crop loss at harvest time, safeguarding the food security of 9.9 million people and protecting grazing areas for the livestock of 687,000 households.