Locust infestation outside Ranohira, near Fianarantsoa, Madagascar
Madagascar’s cereal crops and pastures have been chronically destroyed for centuries by invasions of migratory locust (Locusta migratoria) or red locust (Nomadacris septemfasciata). Several miles long and numbering as many as 50 billion insects, the hordes move at a rate of 25 miles (40 km) per day, laying waste to all vegetation in their path. The recent locust plague in Africa was a dramatic disaster, but we now have ways to detect these invasions and to be better prepared. An early intervention, at a lower cost, could have reduced enormously the dramatic and very expensive impact of the plague in 2004-2005.