Locusts

A “Biblical” Invasion Of Locusts Threatens To Cause Widespread Famine In The Horn Of Africa

The locusts are back, and they are hungry.  Last year, an unprecedented plague of locusts devastated crops in eastern Africa, across the Middle East and throughout much of Asia.  Many were hoping that it would just be a one year phenomenon, but now the locusts have returned and one British news source is using the world “biblical” to describe this second wave.  At this moment, the Horn of Africa is being hit the hardest, and the UN is warning that this new infestation “threatens the livelihoods of more than 39 million people”…

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the next generation of locusts threatens the livelihoods of more than 39 million people in Ethiopia, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, and Kenya. Over recent months, the pests have been combated on 1.3 million hectares of land in the Horn of Africa. However, in northern and central Kenya, more than 15 districts, including many new areas, have already been severely affected by the second wave of locusts. Around 1.9 million people were already living in a precarious nutrition situation, which could now dramatically worsen.

One reporter recently had the opportunity to fly with a pilot that is tracking locust swarms in Kenya, and he was stunned when they came across a “swarm about twice the size of the City of London ready to devour every bit of vegetation in its wake”.

Can you imagine what it must be like for local farmers when millions upon millions of locusts suddenly show up in their area?

These locusts can literally wipe out an entire farm in as little as 30 seconds, and these swarms are capable of traveling vast distances in a single day…

Swarms can fly up to 150 kilometres a day with the wind, and a single square kilometre swarm can eat as much food in a day as 35,000 people.

More than half of the counties in Kenya have already been hit, and many local farmers have had their fields completely devastated.

For example, 70-year-old Isabella Karoki says that she has “lost everything”…

Seventy-year-old Isabella Karoki has never witnessed such a devastating invasion of desert locusts.

“I have lost everything. What do you expect me to eat?” said Karoki, who lives in central Kenya, an agricultural region known for its rich volcanic soils and moderate rainfall.

I honestly do not know what she is going to eat.

When you are a poor farmer and your existence for the entire year depends on what you grow, a disaster of this magnitude can be absolutely crippling.

Hopefully some assistance will be made available, but millions of other farmers in the Horn of Africa will be in the exact same boat.

Of course the locusts eat everything that was meant for livestock as well, and one local dairy farmer named Thomas Mwerore doesn’t know what he will do now…

Dairy farmer Thomas Mwerore is among them.

“The locusts have eaten all the pasture that was there for our livestock,” the 62-year-old told DW. “We are suffering. Even food that we humans eat isn’t there, what can we do?”

Needless to say, this new wave of locusts is going to make the emerging global food crisis even worse.

In 2020, a combination of the COVID pandemic, the locust plague and other factors pushed global hunger to levels that we had not seen in decades.  According to the UN World Food Program, nearly 700 million people were suffering from hunger late last year…

The numbers are staggering— as reflected in the ongoing coronavirus pandemic which has triggered a new round of food shortages, famine and starvation.

According to the Rome-based World Food Programme (WFP) 690 million people do not have enough to eat while 130 million additional people risk being pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of the year.

And the head of the UN World Food Program has previously warned that we could literally see “famines of biblical proportions in 2021”…

The head of the World Food Program says the Nobel Peace Prize has given the U.N. agency a spotlight and megaphone to warn world leaders that next year is going to be worse than this year, and without billions of dollars “we are going to have famines of biblical proportions in 2021.”

When David Beasley made that statement, he didn’t even know that another massive plague of locusts would be hitting Africa this year.

Unfortunately, this new locust plague could soon escalate dramatically.  According to an expert in Kenya, his team is expecting that March and April could be even worse…

“We expect the worst if the young hatch in March and April,” said Kelvin Shingles, Kenya Country Director for German Agro Action (Deutsche Welthungerhilfe), an aid organization, in a press release.

For a long time, I have been warning that global food supplies were getting tighter.

Here in the western world, we can still go to the grocery store and fill up our carts with plenty of food, and so it can be difficult for us to have sympathy for those that are literally facing starvation on the other side of the planet.

But the truth is that it is happening, and the number of people that are suffering from hunger is going to continue to grow.

Even in the best of times we have struggled to feed everyone on the planet, and these are definitely not the best of times.  Even the UN is warning that “famines of biblical proportions” are coming, and the suffering that we will witness will be off the charts.

Here in the United States, our food distribution systems have been rattled by the events of the past year, but there is still lots of food on the shelves.

Of course it is quite true that economic suffering is on the rise, and we have seen a number of instances where Americans have been forced to wait in lines that are miles long at local food banks around the nation.

And it is also undeniable that food prices have been rising aggressively, and this will become an even greater concern as time rolls along.

But for now, let us be thankful for what we still have, and let us also pray for those that are suffering on the other side of the globe because these locust invasions are truly, truly awful.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

A ‘Biblical’ Plague Of Locusts Has Put Millions On The Brink Of Famine: “We Have Never, Ever Seen What We Have In The Last Six Months”

Billions upon billions of voracious desert locusts are ravenously devouring crops over a vast portion of the globe that stretches from eastern Africa all the way to India.  This unprecedented plague was supposed to be subsiding by now, but instead a fourth generation of locusts has emerged that is producing swarms that are “up to 8,000 times larger” than what we witnessed earlier this year.  Some of these swarms are the size of major cities, they can travel up to 150 kilometers a day, and when they descend upon a farm they can literally eat everything there in as little as 30 seconds.  Because these swarms are not affecting the United States, most Americans don’t understand the immense devastation that is happening on the other side of the globe right now.  The UN is warning that mass starvation is coming, and we are being told that it is going to begin by the end of this calendar year.

Each desert locust is very small, but collectively they can consume vast amounts of food.  According to the UN, a swarm that contains between 40 and 80 million locusts can eat “the same amount of food in a day as three million people”.

And it is important to remember that colossal swarms of locusts have been destroying countless farms day after day for many months.  What we have already witnessed is enough to constitute a major global emergency, and now the International Rescue Committee is telling us that this latest generation of locusts is the worst of them all by far…

“A fourth generation of desert locusts up to 8,000 times larger than previous swarms could destroy crops at the start of the hunger season and leave millions facing food insecurity and famine,” explained the aid organization in a statement.

When these swarms of locusts approach an area, they can be so thick that they literally block out the sun.  Authorities have been spraying them with pesticides from the sky, but when you are talking about countless millions of locusts in a single swarm, killing thousands of them doesn’t exactly make too much of a dent.

In past articles about these locusts, I have focused on the widespread destruction that we have been witnessing in Africa, and without a doubt we will see widespread famine across much of the eastern portion of that continent.

This new generation is hitting Africa again, but what has surprised many experts is how hard it is also hitting Pakistan and India.

A British news source is using the term “biblical” to describe the infestation that Pakistan is facing, and the Pakistani government was recently forced to declare a national emergency because of the locusts…

Tens of millions of people are set to face food shortages on the continent after a plague of locusts embarked on a path of destruction across India and Pakistan. In Pakistan, a national emergency has been declared after an outbreak of locusts’, on a biblical scale, wreaked havoc across farmland in the eastern Punjab, southern Sindh and southwestern Baluchistan provinces.

Over in India, one expert is saying that these locusts are unlike anything that his nation has ever seen before…

Bhagirath Choudhary, director of the New Delhi-based South Asia Biotechnology Centre, an agriculture think-tank said: “We have never, ever seen what we have in the last six months in India – never in the history.”

Sadly, most Americans don’t even know that this is happening.

Here in the United States, the mainstream media has been so focused on COVID-19 and all of the civil unrest that has erupted, but this gigantic locust plague should be making front page headlines too.

At this point, things have gotten so bad that the executive director of the UN World Food Program is warning that we are facing “the worst humanitarian crisis since World War Two”, and he has publicly stated that hundreds of thousands of people will soon be starving to death every day…

“If we can’t reach these people with the life-saving assistance they need, our analysis shows that 300,000 people could starve to death every single day over a three-month period”, he upheld. “This does not include the increase of starvation due to COVID-19”.

Thankfully, we are not facing imminent starvation here in the United States.

But that doesn’t mean that everything is okay.

In fact, one brand new survey has found that an increasing number of Americans are skipping meals or reducing the size of their meals now that economic conditions have greatly deteriorated…

“One in four Americans (26%) say they or a member of their household have skipped meals or relied on charity or government food programs since February, including 14% who say they have reduced the size of meals or skipped meals because there wasn’t enough money for food, 13% who have visited a food bank or pantry for meals, and 13% who have applied for or received SNAP benefits,” the survey said.

Many Americans have been taking last Friday’s jobs report as a sign that things will soon turn around, but it turns out that the report was not nearly as rosy as many thought.

In the report, the BLS actually admits that a major “misclassification error” severely skewed the numbers and that the real rate of unemployment is actually about 16.3 percent…

When the U.S. government’s official jobs report for May came out on Friday, it included a note at the bottom saying there had been a major “error” indicating that the unemployment rate likely should be higher than the widely reported 13.3 percent rate.

The special note said that if this “misclassification error” had not occurred, the “overall unemployment rate would have been about 3 percentage points higher than reported,” meaning the unemployment rate would be about 16.3 percent for May.

And according to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if honest numbers were being used and if the numbers were corrected for BLS errors, the real rate of unemployment in the U.S. would currently be sitting at 36.5 percent.

So no, things are not good at all.

But at least locusts are not eating all of our crops and our population is not on the brink of starvation.

We should be thankful for the blessings that we still have, and we should use the time that we have to prepare for what else is ahead, because the truth is that this “perfect storm” is just getting started.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with all many people as we possibly can.

Global Crop Failures Continue: In Australia This Is Going To Be The WORST HARVEST Ever Recorded

Global food production is being hit from seemingly every side.  Thanks to absolutely crazy weather patterns, giant locust armies in Africa and the Middle East, and an unprecedented outbreak of African Swine Fever in China, a lot less food is being produced around the world than originally anticipated.  Even during the best of years we really struggle to feed everyone on the planet, and so a lot of people are wondering what is going to happen as global food supplies become tighter and tighter.  The mainstream media in the United States is so obsessed with politics right now that they haven’t been paying much attention to this emerging crisis, but the truth is that this growing nightmare is only going to intensify in the months ahead.

In Australia, conditions have been extremely hot and extremely dry, and that helped to fuel the horrific wildfires that we recently witnessed.

And everyone knew that agricultural production in Australia was going to be disappointing this year, but it turns out that it is actually going to be the worst ever recorded…

Australia’s hottest and driest year on record has slashed crop production, with summer output expected to fall to the lowest levels on record, according to official projections released Tuesday.

The country’s agriculture department said it expects production of crops like sorghum, cotton and rice to fall 66 percent — the lowest levels since records began in 1980-81.

The continent of Australia is considered to be one of the breadbaskets of the world.  According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 2018/19 Australia exported over 9 million tons of wheat to the rest of the world.

But thanks to relentless crop failures, Australia has started to import wheat, and that is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

So instead of helping to feed the rest of the world, Australia is now relying on the rest of us to help feed them.

And what is happening this year didn’t just barely break the old records.  In fact, one senior economist says that this will be the worst summer crop production the country has ever seen “by a large margin”…

“It is the lowest summer crop production in this period by a large margin,” Peter Collins, a senior economist with the department’s statistical body ABARES told AFP.

Of course if the rest of the world was doing great we could certainly survive a downturn in Australia.

Unfortunately, that is definitely not the case.

Right now, billions upon billions of locusts are voraciously devouring farms in eastern Africa and the Middle East.  As I detailed the other day, giant armies of locusts the size of large cities are traveling up to 100 miles per day as they search for food.  When they descend on a farm, all the crops can be consumed literally within 30 seconds.  It is a nightmare of epic proportions, and UN officials are telling us that this crisis is only going to get worse over the next couple of months.

In Uganda, the army has been called out to help fight this locust plague, but it is making very little difference…

Under a warm morning sun scores of weary soldiers stare as millions of yellow locusts rise into the northern Ugandan sky, despite hours spent spraying vegetation with chemicals in an attempt to kill them.

From the tops of shea trees, fields of pea plants and tall grass savanna, the insects rise in a hypnotic murmuration, disappearing quickly to wreak devastation elsewhere.

The most effective way of fighting these locust swarms is to spray insecticide on them from the air, but even that only produces very limited results.

However, at least it is better than doing nothing.

The UN is trying to raise a lot more money to get more planes into the air, because if nothing is done the number of locusts “could grow up to 500 times by June”…

The U.N. has said $76 million is needed immediately. On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a visit to Ethiopia said the U.S. would donate another $8 million to the effort. That follows an earlier $800,000.

The number of overall locusts could grow up to 500 times by June, when drier weather begins, experts have said. Until then, the fear is that more rains in the coming weeks will bring fresh vegetation to feed a new generation of the voracious insects.

Overall, these locusts are affecting nations “with a combined population of nearly 2 billion”, and the amount of food that these locusts are destroying is unprecedented.

Meanwhile, China has been dealing with the worst outbreak of African Swine Fever in history.

African Swine Fever does not affect humans, but it sweeps through herds of pigs like wildfire.  There is no vaccine, there is no cure, and once African Swine Fever starts infecting pigs in a certain area the only thing that can be done is to kill the rest of the pigs to keep it from spreading anywhere else.

Unfortunately, China has not been able to get this outbreak under control, and the losses have been staggering.

According to the New York Times, the number of pigs that have been wiped out in China already is equivalent to “nearly one-quarter of all the world’s pigs”…

The disease was first reported in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, in early August 2018. By the end of August 2019, the entire pig population of China had dropped by about 40 percent. China accounted for more than half of the global pig population in 2018, and the epidemic there alone has killed nearly one-quarter of all the world’s pigs.

But of course China is not the only one dealing with African Swine Fever.

In fact, cases of African Swine Fever have now been identified “in 50 countries”, and U.S. pig farmers are deathly afraid of what would happen if this disease starts spreading here.

As a result of this crisis, pork prices in China have gone through the roof, and many families are no longer able to eat pork at all.

Never before in the modern era have we seen so many major threats to global food production emerge simultaneously.

There are more than 7 billion people living on our planet today, and we need to be able to grow enough food to feed everyone.

If we aren’t able to do that, food prices will start to get really high, and people in the poorest areas simply will not have enough food to feed their families.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.