Browsing: desert locusts in Kenya

Kenya’s agriculture sector grew by 5.1 percent in 2020, thereby preventing a contraction of the economy, amid the coronavirus pandemic, which ravaged a majority of other sectors.

Data from Deloitte’s East Africa Economies Report 2021 indicates that the sector remains fundamentally important to the Kenyan economy, contributing about 33 percent of the GDP and 56 percent of the employment, both formally and informally.

The report paints mixed performance in the sector in 2020, for instance, as of May 2020, Kenya’s Agricultural sector’s outlook was grim due to the locust swarm infestation affecting domestic agricultural production.

However, as of Q4 2020, the sector reflected a revamped outlook owing to favourable rains and success in beating back a second wave of desert locusts.

“As such, the sector is estimated to have posted a 5.1 percent growth in 2020, emerging as the silver lining sector,” the report says.

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The report also shows …

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) received €11 million contribution from the European Union as the UN agency steps up efforts to fight the desert locust outbreak.

FAO Director-General QU Dongyu received the contribution to help fight the locust upsurge which has now spread from East Africa to the Persian Gulf.

The European Commission announced that €10 million would come from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development (DEVCO). While another €1 million will come from the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO).

“I want to thank the European Union for its generosity and support as the Desert Locust threatens to provoke a humanitarian crisis in East Africa,” Qu said.

Qu also added that the situation is extremely alarming in a region where 20 million people are already considered food insecure.

The locust outbreak is the worst in the last 25 years for Ethiopia and Somalia and …

Uganda’s Cabinet approves an extra $1.8 million to help fight the locust invasion.

This was after it came to be known that $3 million of the initial $4 million released for the same purpose was used to pay membership arrears to the Desert Locusts Control Organisation for East Africa (DLCO-EA).

DLCO-EA draws membership from Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, and Djibouti.

According to the EastAfrican a local news platform, Uganda still owes the organisation an extra $2 million even after paying the arrears, Uganda, together with Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia, are the main defaulters.

According to the EastAfrican, the Country Representative for DLCO-EA, Mr Evarist Magara said that each member partner is supposed to pay $120,000 per year. Adding that Uganda’s debt had grown to $5 million accumulated over nearly 30 years of non-payment. Sudan also owes $6 million to the regional organization.

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