According to a finding of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the locusts have damaged about 70,000 hectares of farmland in Somalia and neighbouring eastern Ethiopia. Video clippings, which has gone viral, show insects flying over the central Somali town of Adado.
The locust invasion was unprecedented this year and is likely to spread to other nations in the Horn of Africa, such as Kenya, Djibouti, Eritrea, South Sudan and Sudan. The weather seems to be favourable for the locust breeding because of the intermittent rains and the expectation is that this weather would continue till March-April 2020, which can proliferate the number of locusts several-fold. This can adversely affect the yield of several crops in the agricultural stretch lying in the Horn of Africa.
