(ERGO) – With just two weeks to go before harvest, Abdulkadir Mohamed Ali was horrified to find locusts devouring all the onions and salad crops he had nurtured over the past three months on his farm in Aroyambo village, 30km west of the Somaliland capital Hargeisa.
“Wherever they land they leave the farms destroyed! For me, my onions and salad are gone, they have left nothing to harvest,” said Abdulkadir, bitter about the devastation wreaked by the locusts.
Abdulkadir, with a family of six children to support, invested $510 in his four-hectare farm, $200of which was a loan he was supposed to repay after selling the harvest.
It is his second major loss this year, as locusts destroyed his crops in April.
“If the situation continues like this, everyone will be left in poverty as we are all fearing planting crops. Some people have already started postponing their farming activities, saying the locusts have increased this year,” he said.
“As farmers we are trying our best to eradicate them, but it’s beyond our control. We don’t know what to do at this point, we will organize a prayer session.”
Aerial spraying by the authorities has not succeeded in containing the locusts. Farmers trying to ward off the swarms with smoke have stopped for fear of accidentally setting fire to farmland.
Mohamed Nur Abdalle, a farmer in Gogolwanag, 40 km west of Hargeisa, told Radio Ergo he has decided not to plant his rain-fed farm until he is assured there will be no more locust invasions. He lost his mango, maize, papaw and tomatoes that were due to harvest last week.
“The locusts destroyed everything on the farm. There is nothing to harvest now, we are in crisis,” he exclaimed.
Abadir Mohamed Abdullahi, another farmer in Humbewayne, 35km east of Hargeisa, lost 70 lemon trees he was expecting to harvest. He had shifted to lemons fearing the locusts would destroy the onions, salad and peppers that he used to grow.
“This is a test from God and there is nothing we can do to salvage the situation. Some of the farmers have been discouraged against farming,” he declared.
The locusts have destroyed nearly 250 farms, most of them in villages in Marodi Jeh region, including Jaleelo, Daarasalaam, Horuhaadlay, Humbewayne, Biyoshiinaha, Huluuq, Biyomaan, Gogolwanag and Aroyambo.
Somaliland’s ministry of agriculture has been struggling to control the locusts that have recently poured in from the side of Ethiopia. Locusts have disrupted the lives of the farmers in Somaliland regions for the last two years. Many families who depend on their farm produce for a living have been thrown into hardship.
