§ Lord Juddasked Her Majesty's Government:
What is their latest estimate of the scale on which locusts are breeding in the Mediterranean, Somalia, Yemen and Morocco; what is the threat to crops in the Horn of Africa, East and Southern Africa, North Africa and the Middle East; what is the role, as they see it, of the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Kenya in dealing with locusts, pest management, food losses 67WA and disease control; how much support they give to ICIPE; and what other contributions they are making to work in this sphere
§ Baroness Chalker of WallaseyIn June, breeding by desert locust swarms was recorded in Sudan and Pakistan and is likely to have started or be imminent in Mauritania, southern Algeria, Mali, Niger, Chad, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Yemen and north western India, on the monsoon rains. The parent swarms originated in the Arabian peninsula, where control has been in progress since late 1992. The countries of the Mediterranean, North and East Africa are unlikely to be invaded until October; the scale of the threat to crops in these areas and in Somalia will become apparent in the next three months. Crops in Europe and southern Africa are unaffected by this locust.
ICIPE is a research organisation and is therefore not directly involved in operational pest management or disease control. ICIPE encourages farmer participation in research and is involved in the development of appropriate technologies for small scale rural producers. The centre's international funding through the consultative group on locust research amounts to some £7 million over five years from 1990, to conduct work on locust behaviour in relation to potential uses for control.
We support a research contract investigating the socio-economic implications and sustainability of trypanosomiasis control based on tsetse traps managed by local communities; the value of this contract is £350,000 over three years.
With regard to our other contributions, I refer the noble Lord to the letter I sent to the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, on 17th July, a copy of which has been placed in the Library.