Pest and Pesticide Monitoring

Locust swarms can include tens of millions of insects. Wherever they land, crop or pasture loss can be 100 percent within hours. Photo credit: Yene Belayneh, USAID/BHA

Transboundary outbreak pests (ETOPs), including locusts, grasshoppers, armyworm and rodents, mean disaster for millions of people whose livelihoods depend on farming in several dozen countries around the world. The damage is more so in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America. The desert locust alone threatens livelihoods of millions of people in more than 65 countries throughout Africa, the Middle East, and Southwest Asia. With the right ecological conditions, these insect pests can form dense swarms that quickly devour crops and pasture land, leaving people and animals without food to eat and pasture to graze. Farmers can see a year's worth of work and sometimes sole means of supporting their families destroyed in moments.

Just as the weather can be forecast, USAID contends that favorable conditions for the proliferation of ETOPs can be predicted in advance. By working together with many international, national, regional and local organizations and partners, USAID is investing in monitoring, early warning, and early action to control locusts and other ETOPs and prevent them from causing massive damage to the livelihoods of vulnerable communities.

USAID created the Assistance for Emergency Locust/Grasshopper Abatement (AELGA) project in the late 1980s to deal with the plague of locusts and grasshoppers that affected much of Africa, the Middle East, and Southwest Asia over many years, and assist affected countries to prevent future major invasions. Formerly known as the Africa Emergency Locust/Grasshopper Assistance project, AELGA's overall objective is to help establish and strengthen national and regional capacities to prevent and control locusts, grasshoppers, and other ETOPs. ALEGA also strives to minimize and eliminate the adverse effects of pesticides to humans, their assets, to non-target and beneficial organisms as well as the environment.

Emergency Transboundary Outbreak Pests (ETOP)