The more than 100,000 Kenyan farmers grappling with locusts that have been blamed for destroying thousands of tonnes of farm crops have now been pointed to a simple and cheap solution by a survey that has shown that the locusts cannot thrive on plants fertilised with nitrogen.

"Nitrogen fertiliser, which plants use to make protein, may be an inexpensive, more environmentally friendly pest control solution for this species," said the lead author of the study, Arianne Cease, a researcher at Arizona State University in the US.

It is believed that most herbivores, including insects, are limited by the availability of nitrogen-rich protein in their diets. The scientists found in field observations that locusts were less likely to survive in fields that were fertilised with nitrogen, and that their density was highest in the most heavily grazed fields, which were dominated by plants with low nitrogen content.

Laboratory experiments further proved that locusts preferred to eat plants with low nitrogen content.

The study further found that soil erosion and overgrazing could enhance locust swarms since they lead to loss of topsoil and nitrogen.

“What this, therefore, means is that farmers don’t have to spend fortunes in synthetic fertilisers like they have always done. In fact, locally available nitrogen fertilizers, including organic ones and even cow dung, which are cheap, saves them from the locust menace,” said Doctor Ayub Ochieng from the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology.

Desert Locusts can destroy crops quickly because they eat so much. An adult consumes roughly its own weight in food every day, while even a small section of an average swarm can eat as much food as 2,500 people every day.

Swarms average 40 million locusts and can eat up to 80 million tonnes of biomass a day.

Research has shown that if not detected and prevented early, the cost of controlling locusts and other pests from invading and destroying crops goes up by up to 15 times.

Certainly, n Kenyan farmer would want to relieve the nightmare of the locust invasion of 2007, when desert locusts from Ethiopia crossed to Kenya and descended on farms. Mandera town of North Eastern province, which had been struggling to be food secure, bore the brunt of the 2007 invasion. More than 200 farming families lost their vegetable and cereal crops, with many more losing their livestock, due to locusts invading their pasture.

The families were placed under relief aid for a whole year having lost everything on their farms.

However, scientists saw it as a wake up call and have been pushing for preparedness, as Kenya still remains vulnerable to more attacks due to its shared border with locust invested Ethiopia.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, for example, has been consistent in warning of the risks of a possible invasion by recently hatched locusts from Ethiopia, after locusts exhaust farms in Ethiopia.

A meeting convened last month bringing together agriculture ministers under the umbrella body International Red Locust Control Organisation for Central and Eastern Africa (IRLCO-CSA0) noted that the threat of locust invasion was still imminent and real, sounding an alarm about the catastrophic effects this would have on millions of livelihoods across the region.

‘Locusts and other migratory pests have shown time and again that they do not respect man-made political boundaries as they migrate from one country to another causing havoc to crops and livelihoods,’ said Gideon Ndambuki, Assitant Minister for Agriculture during the meeting.

Written by Bob Koigi for African Laughter