The Covid-19 pandemic has dominated the news in 2020 to the exclusion of many other important events. As a sidebar to that has been the relationships between countries not only over “sovereignty rights” but also who gets which vaccine.
The 2019–2021 infestation is an outbreak of desert locusts, which threatened the food supply across East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Indian subcontinent. The BBC called it “The Biblical East African Locust Plagues Of 2020.”
“Desert locusts have been called the world’s most devastating pest. Swarms form when locusts’ numbers increase and they become crowded. The insects are able to multiply 20-fold in three months and reach densities of 80 million per square kilometer. Combined, a swarm of 80 million can consume food equivalent to that eaten by 35,000 people a day.”
Last year the story read: “The most serious desert locust outbreak in 70 years could leave nearly 5 million people in East Africa facing starvation, according to the International Rescue Committee (IRC). It comes as many of the countries are already struggling to manage food insecurity caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Fortunately, that worst-case scenario did not materialize, although local communities were severely impacted. However, the back story of the locust plague is critical.
The root cause of the plague is weather and weather patterns that cycle over time. This more detailed explanation is from National Geographic. “Experts say a prolonged bout of exceptionally wet weather is the primary culprit.” Of course, you are thinking it is all because of the nefarious “Climate Change” because that is what we are told, which is the root of all evil.
Except notice that this is the worst infestation in “70 years” long before any in the press put those two words next to each other in a sentence. However, the Human Progress project of the Cato Institute—a public policy research organization—wrote this: “Green Colonialism in Africa Led to the Locust Plague.”
“The best way to stop the locusts is to spray insecticide from the air. Unfortunately, Kenya lacks adequate supplies of the best and most effective insecticide, fenitrothion. The radical environmental movement, which seeks to ban fenitrothion and other safe and effective chemicals, has made Kenyan authorities’ work more difficult.”
Nobody likes the idea of using chemicals as these. But which of us has not used a Baygon or Racumin type product even when starvation was not probable? Fenitrothion is inexpensive and effective against locusts. But drinking 60ml—straight or on the rocks—will cause enough damage to kill you in a few days, so don’t drink it.
“Since last September (2019), European Union-funded non-
governmental organizations in Kenya have been petitioning the Kenyan Parliament to ban more than 250 registered agricultural insecticides. The chemicals the Greens seek to ban are essential for controlling not only locusts but also common agricultural pests, weeds, and fungi. Even as locusts devastate Kenyan crops, NGO lobbyists continue their anti-insecticide crusade.”
In an August 1998 paper—“Chapter 6 – Plant protection practices”—from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN was this advice. “Hand picking of pests and their destruction is another time-tested method of pest control. This method can prove effective in curtailing pestilence on some crops.” The ‘Greens’ are good with that.
Summary: “Africans can let foreign donors play out their ideological fantasies in Africa, like colonialists of the old days. Or they can send them home, where, thanks to modern farming technology, they have the privilege of full supermarket shelves.”
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