Scientists Promote Natural Locust Killer

-Future Harvest: October 23, 2000

A Nigerian research group funded by the World Bank, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), has developed a natural pesticide designed to kill crop-destroying locusts and grasshoppers. A naturally-occurring fungus marketed as Green Muscle provides a "highly effective" control option and is "safer and more environmentally sound than the present range of chemical pesticides," Swarms of locusts have long plagued farmers around the world, according to Future Harvest, a nonprofit research group.

A locust invasion between 1986 and 1989 impacted countries from West Africa to India and consumed an amount of vegetation per day equivalent to the food needs of 200 million people. The fungus was used successfully in August in a mass spraying in Niger. Pesticides are often unregulated and misused in third world countries. As soil deteriorates or drought occurs, resulting in lower crop production, farmers desperately turn to chemical pesticides, which in turn seep into the groundwater, with potentially deleterious effects upon the human population. Perhaps this new organic solution will provide an alternative.