Dakar - The United States is to provide six aircraft, pesticides and other materials to aid West Africa's battle against the worst locust invasion in more than a decade, a senior American development official said on Wednesday.
Wrapping up a 10-day visit to Senegal, Mali and Mauritania, the country worst-hit by this year's invasion of the grasshopper-like insects, Roger Winter of the US development agency USAid also pledged $3,2-million (about R20-million) in immediate agricultural aid to protect crops in the infected countries.
"I have seen the damage caused by the locusts and how this situation is adversely affecting families of many farmers and herders throughout the region," Winter said in a statement.
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"We need to do now whatever we can to protect crops while it is still possible."
Up to 80 million of the finger-length insects can blanket a square-kilometre, devouring as much food as 2 500 people each day.
Their arrival this year could not have come at a worse time for the arid nations, which had endured three years of drought or more before ample rains began to fall last summer - creating ideal breeding conditions for the locusts.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has estimated that $100-million (about R800-million) is needed to protect crops and stave off food shortages in countries from Mauritania to Chad, where locusts have devoured 4,3 million hectares of cropland and millions of tons of grain.
So far $19-million have been pledged by international donors to the anti-locust fight, with commitments of an additional $35-million to help beat back the swarms and stave off a food crisis in some of the world's poorest countries.
Spraying an average of 5 000 hectares each day, the aircraft will initially target Mauritania and Senegal. They could eventually fly over Mali, which is working frantically to protect its lush rice paddies from disaster as the locusts continue their inexorable southward advance.
The Niger development project in central Mali is one of sub-Saharan Africa's oldest and largest agricultural development projects and helps to feed millions of people in surrounding areas. - Sapa-AFP
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