The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reported that it handed over a newly-constructed Desert Locust centre to local authorities in Seiyun, in Hadramout governorate in Yemen as efforts to control and manage the pest continue.
According to FAO Yemen press release , the Seiyun centre, constructed under the World Bank funded Desert Locust Response Project (DLRP), is one of the five centres aimed at improving Locust management in Yemen’s key breeding areas. This includes two main centers located in Sana’a and Aden, and three regional centres in Hodeida, Shabwah and Hadramout. The remaining four centers will be handed over to authorities in the coming weeks.
The new centers in Sana’a and Hodeida replace those that had deteriorated and lacked the minimum needs to perform the locust management properly.
Aden did not have a main locust center. Shabwah and Hadramout governorates did not have desert locust regional centers, which curtailed the control and management of the pest.
According to FAO, Yemen is one of the most significant Desert Locust breeding reservoirs in the Near East region and the establishment of these Centers will mitigate pest outbreaks in the region and beyond.
Desert locust centers personnel will be involved in surveillance and control operations. Data are collected from the field and transferred to the main locust information offices in the main centers in Aden and Sanaa where the data is analyzed and forecasting of locust situation is made to support planning and decision making.
The data will also be shared from the main locust information centers to other countries in the region and to the desert locust information service in FAO.
The information will be utilized for global locust analysis and forecasting, and this serves the global locust early warning.
Apart from the construction of the desert locust centers, the project provided support for early warning information through procurement and installation of six weather.