Recent history of Moroccan locust control and implementation of mechanical control methods in northern Afghanistan

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Moroccan locust, Dociostaurus maroccanus (Orthoptera: Acrididae), is a univoltine insect and an annual pest of wheat, the staple crop in northern Afghanistan. By 1996, the funds that had supported emergency locust control programmes, based on ultra low volume (ulv) technology (a combination of specific application machinery and insecticide formulation that allows volume application rates of typically around one litre insecticide/ha for locust control work) and implemented by the United Nations since 1990, became exhausted. Donors were reluctant to support further purchases of insecticides for a country in the grip of a civil war. Consequently, mechanical control, used by generations of Afghan farmers to protect their crops, was reintroduced. Mechanical control, which involves the monitoring of egg beds in the spring to predict egg hatch, together with the timely mobilization of communities to dig trenches in front of the advancing bands of hoppers, does not use insecticides. Between 1996 and 1999, about 30 000 ha of locusts were cleared by mechanical control saving the purchase of insecticide worth around US$300 000. Mechanical control worked best when the locust was not in an outbreak phase, when the authorities supported the mobilization of communities and when labour was not in short supply. Where circumstances allow, the timely implementation of mechanical control of Moroccan locust is proposed as a means to protect crops and as a strategy to preserve scarce resources.