Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Honourable Peter Munya has presided over the launch of Migratory and Invasive Pests and Weeds Management Strategy (2022-2027) in Kenya at a Nairobi Hotel.
Munya has noted that the desert locusts invasion experienced in the country over the last two years posed a severe food security threat to over 4 million people, affecting 32 counties in Kenya.
“The strategy will establish a modern information and knowledge management system to strengthen surveillance, forecasting and ensure timely and effective control operations,” said Munya.
The CS pledged government’s commitment in working closely with regional and global organizations and national and County Governments and donor community, to support implementation of the strategy.
When the country suffered an unprecedented wave of desert locusts in early 2020, it spelled disaster for thousands of farmers and rural communities.
The arid and semi-arid lands of the country, where the most vulnerable smallholders and agro-pastoralists dwell, were a prime feeding ground for the pest.
There were large swarms of crop and pasture-eating insects on a scale not seen in several generations, and Kenya had neither the expertise nor the capacity to fight them.
With food insecurity already high due to recurring drought, vulnerable farmers and pastoralists could ill afford another hit.