- Fears of major desert locust swarms in the Sahel in 2025 are receding, as authorities in the region continue to monitor breeding sites.
- The FAO says control measures were carried out by teams in Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria in response to earlier alerts.
- While field reporting has been hampered by limited resources and insecurity in many key parts of the region, improved remote surveillance and information-sharing tools have been strengthened.
NAIROBI — In May and June, the Food and Agriculture Organization’s commission for controlling desert locust outbreaks in West and Northwest Africa warned that heavy rainfall and vegetation in North Africa could support major locust swarms in the Sahel this year. These fears are now receding as experts say major swarms are unlikely while the FAO and national authorities are maintaining their monitoring.
Teams in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia responded with ground and aerial control operations, supported by the FAO. By July, reported locust numbers had declined significantly. Cyril Piou, locust forecasting officer at FAO, said heavy storms across Mauritania, Mali and Niger in late July and August meant large locust swarms could still occur. “As anticipated, locust activity decreased in North Africa following the end of the spring breeding season. However, heavy rains in parts of the Sahel could create favorable breeding conditions if they continue in September,” he told Mongabay.
For now, field reports are encouraging. “No reports of desert locust presence were received from the field,” said Sory Cissé, national director of Mali’s locust control unit. “The situation has remained calm throughout Mali and the wider Sahel, from Mauritania to Chad via Niger,” he told Mongabay. He noted that alternating torrential rains and long dry spells have discouraged breeding so far.
While this situation could still change as the rainy season unfolds, Piou agreed that the risk of major swarming in 2025 is receding. “Given that locust populations were already significant during the spring, this summer’s breeding could be more substantial than last year.
Consequently, small swarms may emerge in September or October. However, the risk remains similar to that July and is far less severe than the upsurge that affected southwest Asia and the Horn of Africa between 2019 and 2021,” he said.
Cissé offered two scenarios for the coming weeks, spelled out clearly. The most likely is that groups and small swarms disperse into the Sahel, with a risk of gregarization (the transformation of solitary insects into a swarm) before the end of October. The second possibility is that a few swarms migrate south from the Sahara, leading to fresh local breeding in late September, he told Mongabay. Both scenarios, he said, required “active surveillance in August and September” and readiness to launch control operations in October.
New digital reporting tools have strengthened the FAO’s ability to monitor desert locust breeding, but Piou cautioned that the picture was incomplete. Many potential breeding sites in remote areas of the Sahara were not visited in July, and parts of the northern Sahel were also only partially surveyed, due to a limited number of survey teams and insecurity in some areas.
Preparing for any scenario
In Mali, authorities have pre-positioned pesticide stocks to cover 10,000-30,000 hectares (24,700-74,100 acres) if outbreaks occur. Village brigades have been reactivated to ensure prompt local reporting of swarming, Cissé told Mongabay. Additional staff have also been trained so more teams can be mobilized quickly, and military escorts requested for intervention units because insecurity has disrupted past field operations.
Coordination at the regional level has also been maintained. The FAO convened a contingency planning meeting in Nouakchott, Mauritania at the end of July, at which countries updated their survey and control strategies. Through FAO’s Desert Locust Information Service (DLIS) in Rome, states across the Sahel now share survey results and ecological data daily, said Piou.
Technology has made that exchange faster. “Countries are reporting their survey results daily using the eLocust3K app, developed by FAO-DLIS in February this year,” Piou said. The app allows field teams in remote desert areas to transmit information directly to national and regional centers in real time, a major improvement over paper reporting and outdated digital systems. Satellite data on rainfall, vegetation and soil moisture adds another layer to early warning systems.
But Piou cautioned that technology alone cannot secure the region. “Satellite monitoring greatly supports the evaluation of ecological conditions on the ground and helps assess whether desert locust habitats are favorable for breeding. However, field data remain the most critical source of information,” he said.
That dependence on human observation underscores the value of local knowledge. In Mali, village brigades are often the first to detect unusual insect activity, Cissé said. Their alerts, when combined with satellite monitoring and regional coordination, form the foundation of an effective early warning system. Past outbreaks show that technology works best when anchored in strong field networks and rapid field responses.
Banner image: A boy holds locusts he caught in Nakuru county, Kenya, when the region was enduring massive swarms in 2021. Image courtesy of AP Photo/Brian Inganga.
East Africa deploys huge volumes of ‘highly hazardous’ pesticides against locust plague
High tech early warning system could curb next South African locust swarms
Ethiopia used chemicals to kill locusts. Billions of honeybees disappeared
FEEDBACK: Use this form to send a message to the author of this post. If you want to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page.
Credits
