Locust Outbreak: Not one cent from Eastern Cape Government to assist farmers
8 April 2020
As locust plagues of biblical proportions ravage the Eastern Cape, decimating everything in their path, the ANC-led Eastern Cape government has turned a deaf ear to the desperate pleas for assistance from farmers and organised agriculture.
Not one red cent has been made available by the provincial government to assist farmers in eradicating these swarms, leaving farmers already devastated by prolonged drought to face this disaster on their own.
Swarms of locusts, some reportedly 40km in diameter, are destroying grazing lands and cultivated crops in the western part of the province. Farmers are in a desperate race against time to destroy as many of the locusts as they can before they are able to reproduce.
If the millions of locusts manage to lay eggs before they are exterminated, the province is likely to see future locust outbreaks, which may be even worse than the current outbreak. The westward migration of the locust swarms places emerging and subsistence farmers, ill-equipped to deal with such a massive onslaught, directly in the path of future generations.