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Hundreds of thousands of locusts have descended on crops in northern Afghanistan, under the helpless gaze of farmers and their families already stalked by famine.
In the village of Kandali in northern Balkh, one of eight affected provinces in the country’s breadbasket, a staggering swarm of grey insects has amassed on a fallow wheat field.
After feasting on the harvest they laid eggs to hatch anew next spring, continuing a cycle of destruction in a nation where nine in 10 families already struggle to afford food, according to the United Nations (UN).
“They eat everything that is green: wheat, peas, sesame,” the representative of Kandali village Baz Mohammad told AFP.
Desperate farmers used nets to sweep up the plague of Moroccan Locusts – one of the world’s most voracious pests – before burying them in trenches, but their numbers are still multiplying.
“We walk with hungry stomachs to kill the locusts. If we don’t kill them, our agriculture will be ruined,” Mohammad said.
This year’s outbreak could destroy 1.2 million tonnes of wheat, a quarter of the annual harvest, at a loss of up to USD480 million, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Courtesy of borneobulletin.com.bn
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