Page 14 - AWA Vol.37 No.4

FOOD PRODUCTS & PROCESSING EQUPMENT

A HIGH-TECH RESPONSE IS HELPING COUNTRIES

WIN BATTLE AGAINST DESERT LOCUSTS

For the unsuspecting farmer, the dangerous agricultural pest, the Fall Cressman worked with the devel-
Desert Locust is a formidable enemy. Armyworm. opers of Earth Ranger, a philanthropic
These wretched pests have a voracious “Instead of reinventing the wheel, foundation called Vulcan, to fine tune
appetite, multiply rapidly and travel why not use their expertise with the it specifically for aerial surveillance
up to 150 kilometers a day with the ca- existing technology. Let’s adapt that and locust control.
pacity to devour vast swathes of crops app and use it for locusts,” comments At the height of the locust response,
and pastureland on the way. Cressman. FAO partnered with 51 Degrees who
In the past year, waves of the insid- used this tool to co-ordinate 28 aircraft
ious insect swept across East Africa, in the Horn of Africa for surveillance
Yemen and southwest Asia in massive and control operations, giving pilots
swarms that contained up to 80 million the precise information they needed to
in a single square kilometre. target locusts on the move. The tech-
The threat to agriculture and food nology was so effective in locust opera-
security has been immense and the tions in Kenya that FAO soon expanded
challenge to bring them under con- its application to Ethiopia and Somalia.
trol, urgent. ‘‘Before we were just operating in the
In response, FAO, with partners and dark. With Earth Ranger you can see
donors, developed an array of high- exactly the path the aircraft has taken
tech tools that revolutionised locust and where it has sprayed. It has led to
detection, surveillance and treatment, In less than a month, Cressman and a more effective use of the aircraft, and
helping affected countries to effectively the developers created a simple smart- more efficient control operations. I’m
control them. phone app to allow anyone, even with sure that is a major factor which con-
Using climate data and weather fore- little training, to collect locust data in tributed to the decline in the upsurge
which we are seeing now.’’
the field.
casting, FAO has been at the forefront
in the fight against locusts for decades. But, not every farmer has a cell phone FAO is also collaborating with re-
Its ground-breaking eLocust3 tablet, and plenty of areas in East Africa are searchers from the US National Oceanic
which field teams use to collect crucial totally isolated from any network. So and Atmospheric Administration, the
data around the world and feed it to FAO also partnered with global GPS UK Meteorological Office and Cam-
FAO’s Desert Locust Information Ser- supplier Garmin, to modify a satellite bridge University to develop new
vice, meant that FAO and national au- data communicator that would over- ways to improve swarm surveillance,
thorities could map locust movements come connectivity obstacles in areas forecasting and control strategies.
and stay one step ahead of the game. that have none.
“It’s really the Rolls Royce of our data Though FAO now receives up to 2 500 A space age boost to
collection tools,” says Keith Cressman, records of data a day, nearly 25 percent surveillance
FAO’s senior locust forecaster. of the data is unusable or incorrect and Satellites may be the biggest game
But, despite the tablets being used in FAO again turned to PlantVIllage to har- changer in the fight against Desert Lo-
20 countries, the latest locust emergen- ness artificial intelligence to rapidly custs. Since rainfall is a critical compo-
identify and remove the unwanted data.
cy meant that demand skyrocketed and nent for locust breeding, FAO is using
time was too short to train the farmers FAO’s Desert Locust team then shares two satellites to identify rainfall and
and pastoralists. FAO was fighting a this data with control teams on the vegetation that might be attract locusts
battle on several fronts and needed a ground and in the air so they can quick- for breeding.
heavier hand to tackle the onslaught. ly identify the location of the swarms, ‘‘It sounds like science fiction doesn’t
“We are constantly looking for cut- and then target and kill them. it?’’ says Cressman.
ting edge technologies to harness and A third satellite which Cressman
adapt them into innovative tools that dubs the ‘Holy Grail of Desert Locust
can be used to improve our forecasting monitoring’ goes a step further and
and early warning,” says Cressman. can detect soil moisture beneath the
earth’s surface, conditions which would
Remote communication allow the female locust to lay her eggs.
tools ‘‘It is not just about the moisture on the
By January 2020, Desert Locust surface of the soil but also down about
swarms the size of Paris or New York 15 centimetres, the depth to which fe-
were sweeping across the Horn of males can lay their eggs,’’ he says.
Africa, a region already impacted by FAO is working with NASA, the Euro-
poverty and food insecurity. With the pean Space Agency and the European
pests’ ability to multiply 20 times with Detection from the air Commission’s Joint Research Centre to
each generation, every day that passed A telephone call from one of Kenya’s refine the satellite technology.
made the fight more challenging. wildlife conservancies has also led to Back on the ground, this satellite data
Up against the clock, Cressman another technological breakthrough. is transmitted in real time across cell
turned to researchers at Pennsylvania On the suggestion of one of the rangers, phones, tablets and other devices so
State University’s PlantVillage, which FAO took a digital system, called Earth countries can mobilize their control
provides technological solutions to Ranger, used to monitor the movement teams and take immediate action to
farmers and had previously created of animals, and adapted it for locust tackle the locust swarms.
an app to help FAO track another monitoring.

12 Vol. 37 No. 4