Deep Dive: Dr. Keith Cressman, Chief Locust Forecasting Officer, UN FAO

Locusts. For those born in the 1990s, one of the first images that come to memory is the evil Hopper, a scarred grasshopper, ruthless and violent, and arch-nemesis of the curious and inventing ant Flik in Bug’s life. In the Disney Pixar cartoon, Hopper and his gang devastate crops, destroying any food source available and terrorizing other creatures living in their same area. A plague that for countries like Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Eritrea has become a living nightmare. 2020, the year of the pandemic, but also the year of one of the worst devastations caused by desert locust. Locust swarm clouds can quickly descend and cover a surface area three times the size of New York City. Feasting on anything green, within a few hours, any vegetation that crosses its path is gone. As reported by FAO (Food and Agriculture Organizations of the United Nations), this Biblical plague has created a food crisis for more than 20 million people, at risk of serious starvation. 

In this episode, Dr. Keith Cressman, FAO locust forecasting expert discusses with us how this migratory pest has become a more frequent threat, the role that water plays in increasing or decreasing its likelihood, and how climate change is linked directly to this crisis.

Want to learn more about Desert Locusts and the state of the their spread in the world? Check out Locust Watch where you can find updates and predictions on desert locusts movements across the world and is managed by Dr. Keith Cressman!

For more information on Desert Locust and their biology, movement and how we can control them click here!

Transcript

David Evans: 0:26

Welcome to today's deep dive episode. Today we're talking all about desert locusts. And I know what does a grasshopper cousin have to do with water? That seems super strange. locusts are crazy because they are completely devastating to entire continents of crops to millions and millions of people. And their life cycle is completely tied to water. So yes, water reaches into every part of everyone's lives. Today, we're learning all about how desert locusts can devastate entire regions of the globe, how they're tied to water exactly from Dr. Keith cressman from the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. He is their main locus forecaster. And he knows everything there is to know about locusts, how they react to different situations, and where best to find them, and how we can best fight them. We recorded this interview on December 30 2020. So it's been a little while the local situation has changed drastically. But that doesn't mean that the local situation has gone away whatsoever. locusts are cyclical, and they're tied to water. And when you get a huge plague of locusts, it takes years and years for that plague to be taken out. So they are still there. And this interview is incredible. So sit back, relax, and get ready to learn a little bit more about desert locusts and how they are tied to water and climate change. water we doing? And how can we do better? your one stop shop for everything water related from discussing water to use and the organisms that depend on it. For all the global issues that you really never knew all had to do with water. I'm your host, David Evans from the aquatic biosphere project. And I just want to ask you something. What are we doing? How can we do better? Welcome to today's deep dive episode with Dr. Keith Pressman from the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. Keith is on the frontlines of protecting the world's crops from locusts plagues around the world. And he helps to forecast their movements and help prevent their spread as much as possible. What are locusts? We're gonna jump right into that. So Keith, do you mind introducing yourself and giving us a bit of background about yourself?

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 3:45

Sure. My name is Keith grassman. I work for the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. It's called FAO. And it's the largest of the different un specialized agencies in the world. So I'm based at FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy, which isn't a bad place to live. I've been here for more than 30 years, in fact, and my job basically in FAO is to is to operate the organization's global desert locusts, monitoring an early warning system. So basically, that means keeping tabs on where the locusts are throughout the world, and then forecasting what they're going to do. So kind of like a weather forecast. But in this case, it has to do with desert locusts.

David Evans: 4:27

So pretty much a bad weather forecast. Not not you're doing a bad job, but it's you're never announcing you're not always announcing good news, I guess.

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 4:36

Well, it depends, I suppose, you know, when the situation is calm, then, you know, obviously, I am announcing you know, good news that the situation remains. But But yeah, when it's an emergency situation, yes, usually gloom and doom forecast. Yeah.

David Evans: 4:53

I guess just to get this started. A lot of our listeners may not know what the difference between a locust and a grasshopper is, or if there isn't really that much of a difference at all. So could you just start us off with what are desert locusts and how are they different than grasshoppers,

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 5:10

right locusts and grasshoppers they're basically in the same family. So so you could think of them as kind of being the same type of insect but the difference mainly between them locusts and a grasshopper is that locusts on can increase very quickly a number and then they change your behavior. So So instead of just being kind of solitaries insect, they change and they kind of do a Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde and they they become what we call the gregarious insects and other words, it's an insect that's not alone or any longer but it's one who's who's part of a group, kind of like part of a football team or something. And, and then, because of that, they can create these these great clouds of locusts adults, what we call swarms. And you've probably, you know, read about these in the Bible or in you know, in the history. And they date back, you know, 10s of 1000s of years. We don't have them in America. It's an old world species. So basically, that means in Africa, and Asia, but grasshoppers, they don't form swarms. So that's really the big difference here.

David Evans: 6:16

The locusts, they form these crazy, huge swarms, whereas grasshoppers are more just individuals just out there on the landscape, just doing their own thing.

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 6:26

Yeah, you can have a lot of grasshoppers like in your fields or something like that, but they're not going to create these kind of clouds of locusts that then you know, migrate long distances and you know, really cause kind of havoc and destruction.

David Evans: 6:39

So this havoc and destruction, you kind of alluded to it. And I've always heard of like plagues of locusts. So that being of biblical proportions, that's always been a term that I've heard, what makes a plague of locusts a plague. And why should we be concerned about these gregarious locusts?

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 6:59

Well, basically, a plague occurs only when there's kind of the right weather combinations, kind of optimal conditions for the locusts. And that allows them to reproduce a locus lives about three months, and it can reproduce in that time, about 20 fold. So that means at the end of three months, 20 times the number of locusts, but it's exponential. So which means it just jumps up in time. So after six months, you got 400 times the number of locusts, you know, after a year, you've got 160,000 times the number that you started with. So you know, that's obviously starts to explain, you know, how they formed swarms. So it's kind of a gradual process, you know, it doesn't happen overnight, it usually takes at least six or nine months, you know, of continuing good conditions for that, that process to finish into into forming swarms, once you have swarms formed, and this might only be in a country or two. So still, you know, it's kind of, you know, under control, let's say, but the problem is that they migrate, and they can migrate, you know, more than 100, Calum 100 miles in a day. And so they can cross water bodies, you know, seas and oceans and these things. And when that happens, then they get into more and more countries. So when we have a locust plague, basically, that means that we have a lot of swarms around the place, and they might be in, you know, up to two dozen or more countries stretching from, say, West Africa to India. So that whole kind of desert area,

David Evans: 8:31

West Africa to India, that's an enormous area. Wow. 100 miles a day. That that's that's unfathomable, how how large That is, they can just go keep going and keep going. Yeah,

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 8:47

I mean, you know, the desert locusts, which, which is the worst kind of the most dangerous migratory pest in the world. This is kind of like the superhero of all the different kind of locusts means is we have other locusts around. But you know, they just, they just don't reproduce so fast. They don't migrate as far as a desert locusts. And it's this species that desert locusts itself. That's the one that was in the Bible. That's the one that's in you know, in the end right hieroglyphs in Egypt during the times of the pharaohs. And so you know, they've been around a really long time these guys.

David Evans: 9:21

Right, right, just to help us imagine how big this plague is. But could you describe what the feeling of being within one of these plagues is? Are they so dense that they almost block out the sun? They would just descend on a crop and you wouldn't be able to see your crop at all? Or can you help just describe what it would be like to be on the ground and inside one of these plagues?

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 9:42

Yeah, just when, during the last plague, which was in the late 1980s. I was really lucky because I happen to be living in Khartoum in Sudan at that time, and about a month after I got there. As swarms of locusts started invading the country from from the west from chat, and they moved across the country and I remember one day in the capital in my office there, I just kind of moved to you know, out the veranda, you know, to to the skyline, and I could see like, half the city was just under a dark cloud and kinda look like a rain cloud or something. But But you know, it was the cloud of locusts a single swarm of locusts that took about four hours to move across the city, you know, kind of from one side to the other. So, you know, it was huge, of course, and was just one swarm. So, you know, you imagine during a plague, there's hundreds of swarms or, or you know, maybe 1000 swarms?

David Evans: 10:45

That's, that's terrifying. That's, that's absolutely terrifying. Oh, my gosh, you said the last big locusts infestation. That was in the 80s. Currently, there are locusts swarms that have that have come back. So what's the scale of the problem? And where are we finding these problems currently?

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 11:09

Right? We're not, you know, we're not at a plague yet. Currently, we look at what we were kind of like one stage below the plague, what we call kind of an upsurge. So that basically means it's not, you know, spread out across all of Africa. And the Middle East is just kind of in one, one corner of Africa at the moment, it's in the Horn of Africa, which is like Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya. And it's been kind of in the Horn of Africa for about all of 2020 of this year. And, for example, Kenya, they got invaded by desert locusts at the end of 2019. And it was the worst invasion that they had seen in 70 years. So you know, for that country, it's a really rare event. And then now just again, last week, they got re invaded, you know, so so they have the same scenario kind of setting up again, for for the next for the next few months. So two plagues are not things that happen regularly. There's kind of, you know, a lot of people think, Oh, it's every seven years or every 14 years, no, it's not like that at all. It's very sporadic, mainly because it has to do with rainfall in the desert, which is not really regular, but you know, before the 1960s, so so during, during, you know, the first 60 years of the 20th century, we had plagues, most of the time, and some of those plagues will last as long as 14 consecutive years on stop

David Evans: 12:41

14 consecutive years, we're dealing with these plagues.

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 12:45

Wow. So I mean, that's really horrible. Obviously, now, yeah, 1960s, we don't see that any longer. Fortunately, and that's due to a number of reasons. First, we have, you know, chemical pesticides that we use, which, you know, we didn't have back then, we, you know, was very by air and the US Land Rovers, you know, to look for locusts instead of camels, you know, use satellites to detect the green vegetation, in the end the rainfall in the desert, we use, you know, tablets connected to satellites for for real time data transmission, you know, all this kind of high tech stuff, which sounds really cool. And it is really cool, for sure. But it's worked. I mean, the, you know, the The point is that, you know, with these new technologies that we harness, you know, it has reduced, you know, the these plagues, and you know, obviously hasn't stopped rain from occurring, I mean, rain stones still occurs, but the countries are able to find the locus early enough, you know, kind of like a brush fire, you know, when you find it really small, you can put it out, you don't have a problem. But if you miss it, you know, you get those horrible kind of giant forest fires, or the wildfires that they got in Canada, or Australia, which, you know, are just horrible to try to put up. Yeah.

David Evans: 13:59

Yeah, once it gets to a certain size, there's, there's no stopping it and Mother Nature will take its course,

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 14:04

absolutely. This is what we tried to do we try to, you know, not get the locusts to the plague size, you know, we want to try to get out because when we get even to the upsurge, like we have now, you know, it's just big, the problem is huge. And it takes a lot of money, a lot of time, not to energy, too much pesticide, you know, to bring it back under control.

David Evans: 14:24

Yep. So that's kind of where you come in as a way of predicting and forecasting and trying to understand where these small swarms are, are beginning and in how to how to apply control measures. Is that correct?

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 14:40

Absolutely. Yeah. So what I tried to do is is I try to forecast the, the timing and the scale and the location of breeding and migration. So So in other words, to give the countries that could be affected as much lead time, advanced time, so that they have the necessary time to be prepared, and then to you know, take the necessary control operations before that problem gets kind of, you know, out of control.

David Evans: 15:05

Yeah. So, so I guess, what are what are the key things that you're looking for, for breeding to occur or to just even get the start of get the start of a surge or a swarm? Because as you were saying, This isn't something that happens every year. This is only something that happens every So, so often. So what makes a perfect scenario for having a swarm that appears?

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 15:30

Of course you love the answer, because it fits in with the theme of your program. It's water. Water, that's what it is, how about that it's rainfall. So it's the rainfall is a trigger. So it's unusually heavy rain, it could be very short in duration, but very heavy, that then allows the sandy soil and the desert to be wet for the egg Lang. And then allows for the natural vegetation to pop out of the ground and, and become green to provide the shelter and the food for the locusts. So so that's the driver. So you know, normally doesn't rain much in the desert. So that's why we don't have many problems with desert locusts. But when it does rain, it's not a guarantee, we're gonna have a problem with the desert, but it just increases the likelihood that we're gonna have a problem. So if we look back at the the current upsurge that we have now, which basically started two years ago in mid 2018, from two cyclones, so here's your water again. So cyclones that formed in the western part of the Indian Ocean, and they brought really heavy rains to a place what we call the empty quarter in Saudi Arabia, as exactly what it is. It's one of the most emptiest places on this planet. There's nothing there, except for Skype for sand dunes. There's no towns, there's no villages for like, you know, 500 miles, you know, there's nothing, no Facebook, no internet connectivity. No podcasts, you know,

David Evans: 16:59

so why would why would we want to go there? Yeah,

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 17:02

we wouldn't. But obviously, the locusts went there because of those cyclones. And it was really weird, because, you know, normally, there's like one Cyclone a year at the most, and, and in 2018, we had about four cyclones, and two of those cyclones dropped rain in the exact same place, one, one in May, and then one about six months later. So just when the vegetation would have been drying out in that place in the desert, there comes you know, cyclone number two. And of course, it was the empty quarter, you know, nobody could get there to check to see if there's locusts and if there were they couldn't do any type of treatments. So it was kind of like a Club Med holiday for the locusts. I'm there for nine full months. So remember my numbers at the beginning of the show here. So nine months out, that means roughly about 8000 times a number of locusts were bred in that area. So that's what you know, initiated the the, let's say the first wave of swarms that then you know, left from those air areas, and migrated into different directions.

David Evans: 18:05

Yeah, so this large expanse has unseasonable rainfall that just is also very timely in that it just allowed for this uncontrolled breeding episode to occur to allow for the swarms to become swarms and to reproduce. And then now it's it's really caused this huge issue. Do you see climate change as a driver of potential future episodes of swarms? And does that really play into your ability to predict and forecast into the future?

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 18:39

For sure. You know, with climate change scenarios, everyone knows a planet is going to get warmer, and that's fine for desert locusts, because they like really hot temperatures, you know, 115 120 degrees Fahrenheit, they're fine. It's, it's that they're quite cool. Yeah, those conditions, Prakash, in addition to in addition to the warming planet, you know, some of the climate change scenarios are saying that we're going to have kind of more unusually heavy rain events. So things like cyclones, just what I've been talking about the main driver to initiate plagues. So if that becomes more frequent, then I think we will see the desert locusts you know, being opportunistic and taking advantage of those those fabulous rains to you know, increase in numbers and cause swarms to form and that can, you know, develop into a play. You know, as I mentioned, desert Luke was a really, really old they've been around, you know, they're one of the oldest insects on on Earth, you know, similar to like cockroaches. Nice guy. And so desert locusts have already gone through climate change, you know, a number of times and they are absolutely fine. I'm not sure if you know, will be able to do as well as the desert locusts. But these guys, these guys are professional survivalists, and they, you know, know how to live in, you know, the most harshest conditions in areas on this planet. And, and I think, you know, climate change is only likely to to help them probably rather than, than hurt them. The other thing with climate change, which you don't know very much about yet is what's going to happen to the wind patterns. The planet. So, you know, locusts, they migrate with the wind, you know, they're not like a bird that can fly in any direction. So it's basically they're victims of the wind, you know, they're pushed by the wind. So if those wind patterns happen to change, and imagine, you know, temperatures are warming, and we get these kind of, you know, more frequent Southern Southern rainfall events that could open up new habitats for the for the locusts. And so, you know, it means that they desert locusts, you know, could be more often seen in southern Europe, for example, or other parts of Asia, probably not North America, because they'd have to cross the Atlantic. And that's really tough to do. But

David Evans: 20:57

a big windfall.

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 20:59

Yeah, at least in the old world, you know, this could open up new possibilities for them. Wow,

David Evans: 21:04

I'd never even considered yet how wind would potentially play a role in their dispersal. That's a huge issue that that really, we'll just have to see, I guess.

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 21:14

Yeah. But we have to be kind of a little bit maybe prepared in advance.

David Evans: 21:18

Yeah, exactly. You're right, you're right, I misspoke. We have to, we have to be able to understand these things in advance to be able to prepare to avoid those those things from happening. Based on the work that you're you're currently doing, what is the the forecast looking like for this upsurge? that's currently in the Horn of Africa and looking into into the year glass ball for 2021? What is kind of the expectation that will happen to this, this upsurge?

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 21:50

Right, usually, I usually forecast about six weeks in advance, I can forecast a bit longer than that, but but because much of my forecast depends on the weather, especially rainfall, and rainfall is not horribly predictable, in you know, many of these desert areas.

David Evans: 22:05

So So,

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 22:06

you know, a month and a half forecast is pretty rock solid. But you know, if we go beyond that, you know, becomes a bit less precise. So, at the moment, of course, much depends on you know, what's going to happen to the upcoming rainy season in East Africa, which starts around March or so and then continues to, to June. Now we're just finishing one of the rainy seasons. And so the locusts have already done very well they've bred and they've made use of those rains. So, so that's not a problem. So what basically it means between now and March is that the locusts will will still be in areas, and they will be increasing further, because we have predicted rains during that period. So mainly, like in southern Ethiopia, northern parts of Kenya, northern parts of Somalia, probably all places where, you know, you don't really go on a holiday, but, but but the low physical there. Yeah, then in addition, of course, along both sides of the Red Sea, in the wintertime is a rainy period. So this will be a time when the locusts numbers are increasing there. So this means on the coasts of, of Egypt, of Sudan, and Eritrea, of Yemen, of Saudi Arabia. And then after that, they move. So you know, this is typical kind of locusts, behavior, you know, that they take advantage of, of good conditions during kind of so called rainy periods, but then when the vegetation dries out, and the soil becomes too dry for any further reproduction, and they don't get stuck there, they just pick up and they migrate on the winds to the next kind of place where it's going to rain. And, and, you know, the weather is, is very integrated within wind itself, of course, so, you know, winds, they feed into these into these rainy areas. And the locusts themselves are integrated with the weather. So it's kind of a very, you know, nice example of, of kind of nature, how nature works, you know, how how, you know, the insects work with the weather, it's just that now, everything is out of balance. Because first we've had so much unusual rainfall in the past two years, that's, you know, given given rise to too many locusts. So there's just too many locusts around that, you know, it's beyond what nature can manage. Because normally when locusts are known, low numbers, you know, natural predators and diseases, viruses funguses you know, granted the corona desert locusts kind of manages. But But you know, they're, they're, they're, they're beyond that at the moment. So so we have to, you know, try to get back down to, to a situation where, you know, there's fewer numbers of locusts was more kind of unbalanced with with the nature around it.

David Evans: 24:48

Yeah, it's just it's just at a level now that Mother Nature just can't, can't compete. What are what are the best methods for control? So you were saying, get in early when they're in low numbers, but is there anything that can be done once they get to upsurge levels, or even when they're at low levels? How do we control them? I'm assuming pesticides are employed and that's probably the best way once they get to such large numbers, but it must be difficult with With a lot of these really impassable areas, or are difficult to access locations where these locusts like to congregate, what's the current technology at and in our ability to fight back against against these upsurges? Right? I

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 25:34

mean, obviously, there's two factors here. One is, first, you got to find the locus, and then and then second, you know, you should be able to treat them. So as you rightly mentioned, you know, in the desert areas of Northern Africa met many of these places are becoming unsafe even even to get into, you know, my, by the national teams in the country. So it's the countries themselves are responsible for, for monitoring their own locus and for for doing the control operation. So it's not that we have some un you know, glorified kind of, you know, that's gonna come in there parachute in, yeah, do that for them. So the countries do that. But, you know, even in their own countries, that they can't reach all of the areas because of an increasing amount of insecurity. And you can think of northern Mali, you can think of Libya, you can think of, or you can think of Tigray now and in Ethiopia, and Yemen, you know, Iran, Iraq, you know, places that you've kind of heard about in the news that aren't very easy. Yeah, yeah. And many of these are our locus habitats. So so that's already kind of an increasing challenge. But you know, as I mentioned earlier, we're using we're harnessing satellite technology to know words rain to know where there's green vegetation, so at least, we can prioritize those huge areas and just check those for locus, once teams on the ground, and the best way, of course, is in the Land Rover, you just go out driving in the desert, looking for green areas, and seeing if there's any sounds pretty fun, which is really fun. Yeah, I've done a lot. But once you see them kind of concentrating in groups, then that's the time obviously to do to spray them. We have chemical pesticides that are used, but you know, under desert conditions that they break down after about 24 hours. So it's not you know, things that you can just kind of spray anywhere in, you know, three months later the locus is gonna come across. And we have biological pesticides that are very cool to fungus that only attacks lupus and grasshoppers. So so that one works is really safe that one works. So you know, when when you know, the teams find these locust concentrations in the desert that are usually pretty small, they can treat it just with the backpack sprayer, or maybe if it's a little bit bigger with a sprayer, you know, on the back of their pickup truck. And that's, you know, that works really well. But if they miss that, or you know, the areas are just like too big, and they don't have enough teams, and you get these big swarms that form, then you have to go to something bigger. And that means aircraft. So that means aerial spraying, always using the same stuff. So you use chemical pesticides, or bio pesticides, but but you're just you know, aircraft country, you know, much, much larger area. I mean, you know, these swarms. They get really crazy big. For instance, about a year ago, in northern Kenya, there was a swarm, that was about 35 miles long, by about 15 miles wide,

David Evans: 28:33

35 miles long, by 15 miles wide.

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 28:39

So I mean, that's the size of the country of Luxembourg, which is a really small country in Europe, but

David Evans: 28:45

that is crazy.

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 28:47

And that was one single swarm. So that was like covered, the whole area is like covered with locusts. And so Oh, my gosh, you know that okay, apart from you know, you know, how big they can get and how much quickly they can multiply or how far they can migrate. You know, the big problem is how much they can eat. And right, this is the thing because locusts eat everything. You know, they don't prefer certain crops, they will just eat anything that's around. And of course, they like the natural vegetation, the desert, but when they finish that, then they get into the farms, you know, to the farmers that are growing near real crops, and then fruits and vegetables and you know, even coffee plantations, that stuff like that.

David Evans: 29:28

In our coffee. No, no,

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 29:31

if you just imagine a swarm the size of Manhattan, right, New York City. Okay, yeah. And that's not a big swarm for locusts. Okay, Manhattan is not so big, but still okay. Still, a swarm the size of Manhattan in one day, that swarm will eat the same amount of food as everybody in California and New York.

David Evans: 29:54

Everyone in California and New York, New York,

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 29:57

in one day will eat the same amount of food that that swarm would consume.

David Evans: 30:03

Oh, my goodness. That's, that's crazy. So this swarm the size of luxenberg.

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 30:10

Yeah, it would eat the same amount of food is everybody in Kenya?

David Evans: 30:15

Oh my goodness. Yeah. In one day. Well, that is absolutely terrifying.

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 30:23

So this is why, you know, this comes back to the importance of good monitoring of early warning of decent more than us and try to, you know, not let get these things out of control.

David Evans: 30:34

Yeah, exactly that just to be able to provide food, because that would lead to more food insecurity. And then it's just a vicious cycle. Whereas you can't get into these areas because it unstabilized as regions, they don't have the food and, and that causes other issues so that the governments aren't able to actually get in there to be able to monitor

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 30:57

you, right. I mean, and unfortunately, you know, where these things are happening, they're happening in parts of Africa that, you know, already extremely kind of vulnerable and fragile. I mean, the Horn of Africa, prior to last year, they had three years of drought. So they were already like, mad situation, right. Then on top of that, last year, they had a cyclone that brought them floods, so they had floods. And then on top of that came the locusts. So it's just kind of, you know, another shock, you know, that's being added to the pile there. Yeah, and, you know, this really hurts people's livelihoods. Because people in those countries, you know, the 80% of the populations rely on agriculture, or pastures, you know, these are not industrious nations. So, you know, when you have a locust certain swarms come into those areas that start, you know, eating that their pastures, you know, that they that they need for to sustain their, their cattle, or their their farms, for the food production, it really hits them hard. I mean, if you think about and pastures, you know, we don't think about the importance of pastures, you know, these wild grasses, but you know, there's a lot of people that their livelihoods depends on camel grazing, or goats or sheep or, or small price. And when the pasture when there's less food, what happens to the animals, of course, you know, they get skinny, right, and so you can't sell them for very much in the market, there's not much meat on them. But the other thing is, as you know, the milk that they produce is used for children, new child nutrition, so you start to have an impact on children, and, you know, have an impact on children that can be very long lasting, you know, it's not just this year, that could affect them for four decades. And yeah, this becomes, you know, extremely, you know, kind of sad, in terms of, you know, farmers, and imagine you're a farmer, right, and you grow rain fed crops. So you you rely on the rain to irrigate your crops, you don't have any wells or, or drip irrigation or anything, and you're growing, whatever, some type of corn or cereal or something. And so you look towards the horizon, right? And you see, kind of, you know, that you're the rain cloud coming, and you're, you're really happy because that's exactly what you need, you know? Right? And if it's a good year, yeah, mind you, you know, you're probably growing food, not only for this year, but you know, for the few coming years, you know, the kind of stockpile food, you know, in case there's, you know, oranges, right, so you see this rain cloud on the horizon, you're like happy and then you notice that the cloud is moving towards your field. And when you look up, you'll see it's not a rain cloud, but it's a swarm of bow. And you and you've never seen this before in your life, for example, if you're in Kenya, but you've heard about it from your grandparents. Right? So then you kind of Oh, my God, the horrid tales are like coming true. And then you know, in by, by mid day, there's nothing left in your field. That's it. Wow, you've lost everything for this year, probably next year for your family, maybe for your extended family or your community. All gone in half a day.

David Evans: 34:03

I can't even imagine that, that that kind of horror, of realization of there's nothing you can do. And completely out of the blue.

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 34:14

Yeah, no, it's it's, you know, and, you know, we in the in the States, you know, we don't have desert locusts, we don't have swarms. And we don't have any of these problems, really. So. So yeah. It's kind of when you hear about them, it's kind of stuns you In fact, of what what can happen in other parts of the world.

David Evans: 34:37

Wow, that is it, that's just shocking. It's just shocking to, to have that. And it just kind of reinforces the importance of the work that you're doing to help to kind of understand and be able to to be a frontline responder or frontline predictor of where the these issues can pop up and how they can affect millions of people around the world. Yeah, is there anything that they won't eat at all? Or is it just basically there's there's nothing that that you could plant that they would not touch?

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 35:11

There is nothing you can plant that they wouldn't touch. I mean, you know, if they're in an area where you know where there's nothing to eat, but what Crop you have, they will eat your crop?

David Evans: 35:23

Yeah. Do they bring diseases as well with them? Or is they the main effect is just just that they're completely consuming crops I hope I hope they're there's no disease, there's not another double whammy to that fortunately

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 35:36

not there's enough whammies already know they only eat so they don't they're not factored with any diseases or anything.

David Evans: 35:43

What What would you hope that anyone who listens to this episode would take away from this as like as someone who's never experienced a plague of locusts or an upsurge of locusts in real life? What What should I take away from this? How would I be able to support work like the work that you're doing, or the work of, of these governments to be able to actually go in and, and protect their citizens and be able to monitor and put out the smaller fires of local swarms of locusts before they, they, they get out of control?

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 36:23

I think, probably the take home message here is that, you know, locusts plagues are still very real thing. You know, as you mentioned, the beginning, you've heard about plagues kind of, and then mentioned the Bible's as one of the seven plagues or whatever. But But you know, many people because, you know, it doesn't come to the States. They think, Oh, well, it's an old thing that happened in the past doesn't happen anymore. But that's not true. It's still happens. And not all the time. But when it does happen, it's very, very hard hitting and and there's an awful lot of people that that suffer. And sometimes you hear about it in the news. And sometimes you don't, it just depends, you know, what you're competing with, now we're competing with COVID, and Trump and the real and then the election and all of these and so, right, I don't hear much about swarms at the moment. But yes, it's a very, very real problem. And obviously, as you mentioned, the key is to get out of early prevention, and early warning, absolutely essential. But this means that governments have to have the the capacities to do that. And, and we had FAO, we develop those capacities, we work with them to strengthen their capacities, but this does require funding, of course, we get funds, mainly from other governments from from governments in the West, including the US. So, you know, obviously what, you know, what a concerned citizen could do in the state is lobby for this funding, with your senator with your yours, your state congressmen, to you know, get the, you know, have the funding continue from from USDA, from USA ID to to Africa and to Asia where, you know, they have to manage desert locusts. So I think that's a very, very important thing. There's also NGOs, nongovernmental organizations that are working in the communities kind of at the community level, you know, to to help them that some of the farmers like I described, and they to the, these NGOs, these international NGOs, they obviously they rely on contributions from concerned citizens and generous people. So I would say if there's an interest there, obviously, that's a very useful route to go. And in both directions, I would say, you know, it's always kind of a parallel direction. So one is always improving, you know, the, the future so, you know, strengthening the national capacities of the countries to to manage locus in the future when they have a problem. But also, then now, when there are emergencies, obviously, you know, there are farmers that, that, you know, they lost on their crop, they don't have enough money to replant, they can't buy seeds, you know, so So, you know, it's that type of assistance that's needed and can be channeled as well through NGOs through through religious organizations and agencies that might be working in in those countries that are affected by desert locusts.

David Evans: 39:29

Well, thank you so much, Keith, this has been I, I've learned so much, and I I feel that I've been rather ignorant that I didn't know about the scale of this issue. And I just thank you for the opportunity to speak to you and to be able to pick your brain on on this really important issue that doesn't get the press or the information passage that it deserves. I'm just I'm just wondering, is there anywhere that listeners could go to learn more about the work that you do specifically or to be able to follow the the predicting of locusts and things like that?

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 40:06

Yes, we have a have a website. That's I managed it at FAO. It's called locust watch. So you could just watch Google that is two words look as watch the the address is not very difficult. It's um www.fao.org slash ag like AG, and then slash locusts, plural l o, cu STS. And there you'll find all the information, you'll see the latest situation. If you find also our contact information in case you'd like to learn more about locus or have questions, or even if you want to contribute, we can help you out there too.

David Evans: 40:45

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. This has been an amazing conversation. And I, I encourage everyone to go check out locus watch, and to be to be generous and to think about how you can help in this situation. And then this fight for all of these other people in the world who are dealing with this, who, maybe no one listening on this will actually be dealing with this, but it's something to keep in mind. Thank you again, Keith. And I hope you have a great rest of your day.

Dr. Keith Cressman, UN FAO: 41:13

Thank you very much, David for for having me on your program. I really enjoyed it. And I wish everyone a very happy and healthy 2021.

David Evans: 41:28

Thanks for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed this episode, please hit the subscribe button, so you don't miss any of our future episodes coming out sometime soon. I would just like to thank Dr. Keith cressman for taking the time to speak with me about this really complex issue and making it really palatable and understandable. If you want to learn more about desert locusts and what's actually happening in real time, and what Dr. Keith Crossman's predictions are going to be, then you need to check out his website fao.org slash ag slash locusts. It's called locust watch. And he publishes his predictions. There's interactive maps that actually show where the swarms are in real time how big they are and where they're going. It's super cool and fascinating. I highly recommend it. Very, very cool, but also just a little bit terrifying. I'm the host and producer, David Evans. And I would just like to thank the rest of the team from the aquatic biosphere project, specifically to Paula pohlmann. Sophie cervera Anna batini. Thanks for all of your help. To learn more about the aquatic biosphere project and what we're doing here in Alberta telling the story of water. Check us out at aquatic biosphere.ca. And if you have any questions or comments about the show, we'd love to hear them. Email us at conservation at aquarium Society of alberta.ca. Please don't forget to like, subscribe, and leave us a review. It really helps us out. Thanks and it's been a splash