The worst locust plague in more than a decade in West Africa has begun threatening a key rice-growing region, Mali's press agency reported on Saturday. The locusts "quickly darkened the sky above the area of Sokolo and the surrounding countryside, creating dismay in all the villages," Amap said. The Niger development project, situated in the centre of Mali, is one of the oldest and largest agricultural development projects in sub-Saharan Africa. Huge amounts of rice are grown there, supplying both Mali and its neighbours.
A team of experts has gone to the area to try to set in place measures that could hold back the devastating invasion. A source close to the Malian presidency who did not wish to be named said Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure was due to travel to the region "shortly." "If the locusts invade the rice paddies, it's over for the country," the source said. Locusts have destroyed an estimated four million hectares of crop land and devoured millions of tonnes of grain from Mauritania to Chad in recent months. 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 grasshopper-like insects. |