Original subtitles

On Unreported World,

alongside coronavirus, there's another plague.

Billions of locusts are swarming across Kenya and neighbouring countries,

devouring crops and threatening millions with starvation.

Sahar Zand reports from Kenya

on the teams attempting to hunt down and destroy the locust swarms.

INSECTS BUZZ

Alongside the coronavirus,

Kenyans are enduring another infestation.

It leaves families destitute and starving.

Vast swarms of desert locusts are devouring every crop

and scrap of vegetation they land on.

And their numbers are growing at a frightening rate.

I have my first encounter with the locusts

in southern Kenya.

Look!

Wow.

Wow.

All of this black

are the tiny hoppers.

Hoppers are essentially baby locusts.

They've been incubating under the ground

in eggs laid two weeks ago by a passing locust swarm.

There's just so many of them.

The entire road is covered in them.

Newly-hatched locusts are called hoppers.

They can't yet fly, but feed voraciously.

Look, they're just coming out of these tunnels.

During her three-month life,

a female locust can lay 250 eggs.

Within weeks, the hoppers will be able to fly,

creating a new swarm.

You see these white things?

They're the locust eggs that these teeny, tiny baby locusts

have just hatched from.

Just give them a couple of weeks,

and they're going to turn into grown, mature locusts

that have been devastating this entire country,

that have been affecting the livelihoods

of millions of people in the region.

It looks like they are multiplying by the minute.

What is your biggest worry about your near future,

with this situation?

TRANSLATION:

Nearby, farmers are battling the vast infestation

with pesticides supplied by the Ministry of Agriculture.

But they have to source it abroad, and supplies are running out.

Other farmers are looking for help elsewhere.

LIVELY SINGING

In a special service, they're asking God for help.

HE PRAYS

But their pastor reminds them

locusts were one of the ten plagues

God unleashed on Egypt for defying his will.

ALL: Amen.

Why do you think God sent the swarms?

Agriculture provides a livelihood for more than 80% of the population in Kenya,

and nearly 1.3 million live on the edge of hunger.

Close to the congregation, I visit the farm of Antony and his family.

He's 24 years old and an agricultural student.

These hoppers are everywhere.

Oh, wow.

All the stems on these are completely black.

They grow millet, sorghum and cotton.

The adult locusts hardly spared any of the crops,

and before moving on, they left millions of eggs behind.

The financial cost of this destruction is hitting already.

Antony has had to drop out of college.

He and his parents show me their grain stores.

Their crops were just about ready for harvest

when the locusts attacked.

This is all your harvest for this year? Yes.

How much do you normally have?

And this one isn't even full.

Government aircraft did spray the swarms here with pesticide,

but only after a week.

Do you think the government could have done more to help you?

The planting season is just about to start,

but the family can't risk sowing seeds with the farms still infested.

We head north to Turkana county.

It borders Ethiopia, where many swarms are entering Kenya from.

In this semiarid area, unusual rainfall has brought the greenery

locusts need to feed on, as well as the moist soil to lay eggs.

There are reports that swarms are gathering

of a size not seen here for 70 years.

Oh, look at that!

Look!

Look.

Ah!

This is mental.

This entire wall...

Look at my feet!

They are tree locusts, not desert locusts.

But they're a sign their larger and more destructive cousins are close.

This is literally happening in the middle of town.

This is not even in a rural area, it's an urban area.

Oh...

Oh!

Early next morning, I'm riding with Peter Lochakwan

and Alphonso Auren from the Ministry of Agriculture.

Their job is to hunt down locust swarms and destroy them.

Peter, what do we know about this particular swarm so far?

Flying somewhere above us is one of the six Kenyan military aircraft

equipped for spraying the locusts with pesticide.

How important is it to get there now, to get there fast?

Mm-hm.

So these locusts get their energy from the sun,

because they're cold-blooded, and it's important for us to get there

before the sun is properly our in the sky and before it's hot.

We're literally swarm chasing.

When on the move, swarms can travel over 100 miles in a day.

Locals are calling in sightings of where swarms settled overnight.

We're looking for the exact location of the locusts,

and he's getting loads of calls on his hotline.

We're close to where the swarm was sighted.

We just saw the pesticide spraying plane, just there.

We know that the locusts are somewhere here,

but where is the mystery.

The spraying aircraft is running low on fuel.

But in the nick of time,

Peter spots a flash of yellow in the bushes.

They're here, they're here. A lot of them.

We've found them!

There're here. They're on the ground.

See them? Down there.

They quickly find the main swarm.

They soon realise it's one of the biggest

they've personally encountered.

Oh!

The team sends GPS coordinates to the aircraft.

They show the swarm stretches for seven square km -

at least 20 million locusts.

OK, come, come, come. Guys.

The pesticide used to kill adult locusts

needs to be extremely powerful.

So the army plane circles low,

a signal to anyone below to clear the area.

We're getting out of the area, because they're about to spray.

An hour later, the swarm is no more.

But there are many other swarms in the area to be hunted down.

We get news from other swarm hunters 200 miles south

that there are swarms in an area that's vital to Kenya's economy.

We've approached the Highlands,

and it's visibly so much greener.

It's so lush here.

This is where the cash crops are growing, like coffee, tea,

and agriculture here is big business.

Many large firms here export internationally.

Damage to their businesses will take months to become apparent.

I'm heading to the local government's office right now,

hoping that they can tell us where the locusts are.

INDISTINCT

In Nanyuki, I meet John Hutu,

another swarm hunter working for the Ministry of Agriculture.

A farmer is giving him the location of a new swarm.

And these are the adult locusts, mating and laying eggs right now?

Sure.

The next morning, I head out with John.

This is an area full of small farms,

as well as protected wildlife like white rhino and zebras.

This means it's often too dangerous to use planes

spraying powerful pesticides.

Zakari is the farmer that spotted the locusts and tipped off John.

Can you see that?

At first, you can't see them.

The deeper we go into the field, the more of these locusts we see.

TRANSLATION:

But John, the swarm hunter,

decides this is a place where they can't risk aerial spraying.

And I notice the river is right there.

If the aerial spraying came, they could poison the water. Yeah.

John marks the location where the locusts have laid eggs

so that later, they can come back and spray the newborn hoppers.

But for now, the farmers are left on their own

to battle the swarm threatening their crops.

We are going to one of the farms,

who are just across from where the locust invasion is.

And they are trying to find ways to scare them off

from entering their farms.

SHOUTING Oh, no,

they've already gone to their farms.

They have arrived to your farm.

Near to where the swarm is resting, across the river,

Jen and her family have a one acre farm.

Sorry, I'm sorry. I'm so sad now! The locusts are here now.

Even a small swarm can eat the same amount of food in a day

as 35,000 people.

More locusts arrive, so they light fires.

Jen hopes the smoke will repel them.

Since those locusts arrived there yesterday,

the farmers have been doing everything they can

to try and repel them from their farms,

because they know, as soon as one of them, a couple of them,

come into their farms, the rest will follow.

First, they will devour everything, then they will lay eggs

and their numbers will multiply.

Suddenly, locusts start to fill the sky.

They're all above the farm now.

They fly over us but don't land.

Jen is safe, but the locusts are now in her neighbour's farms.

It's only a matter of time before these farmers

face much larger swarms.

Then they'll need much more than small bonfires to fend them off.

How confident are you that the government,

that the authorities will help you tackle this before it's too late?

In the north, larger swarms are gathering.

I head back to Turkana to join swarm hunters Peter and Alphonso.

Peter and Alphonso have been sending me updates of the reports

they've been receiving on the locust helpline.

Apparently about three hours north of here,

near the South Sudan border,

there's been sightings of big swarms last night.

HE ASKS A QUESTION

It seems like we're in the right area.

A few people we've asked along the way,

they said they definitely saw a big swarm

flying over in this general direction.

Despite continuing to receive calls from the locals,

reporting sightings of locust swarms,

the guys from the Ministry of Agriculture are staying in.

They told us that's because they still haven't received

the pesticides from the central government.

With no pesticide, both the spraying aircraft

and the swarm hunters are grounded.

We're now in a county that in effect has been abandoned to the locusts.

But we keep searching.

The chief Erot and his father Ekeru

herd goats and live off their milk and meat.

THEY SPEAK OWN LANGUAGE

But passing locust swarms have devastated the grazing.

And, just as we'd seen in the south, here, too, new swarms are emerging

from the locust eggs laid by the earlier swarms.

THEY SPEAK OWN LANGUAGE

THEY SPEAK OWN LANGUAGE

We continue our search for the locust swarms.

We know that they are heading north towards the border of South Sudan.

So at least we are going in the right sort of general direction.

Just before sunset, we find them.

Holy... Look at that!

It's the biggest swarm we've seen yet.

They're devouring everything on their path and they're growing

and they're multiplying by the second,

and the local authorities can't do anything about it.

All that yellow behind me, they're not yellow leaves.

All of them are locusts, feeding on those trees.

All of these locusts here,

and nothing is being done about them.

We wanted to ask the Kenyan government about what we'd seen,

but they told us no-one was available.

However, they insist they are winning the war against locusts.

But since our filming,

the coronavirus has slowed efforts to fight the infestation

and made it even harder to import pesticides.

A second wave of locusts in swarms up to 20 times larger

is now forming.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media