In December 2019, Cyclone Pawan hit Ali Mahamud Rubaax\u2019s village of Dharkeynley in Beletweyne, central Somalia.<\/p>\n
The storm\u2019s rain caused the river levels to reach their maximum, breaking their banks and overflowing into the village and surrounding areas leaving most of the town under water. About 182 000 people from this district were displaced. Some drowned. Others had gone missing.<\/p>\n
This wasn\u2019t the first time Ali dealt with flooding. As a lifelong farmer, he had often seen the river overflow and destroy his crops.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the flooding ended last year, we started planting seeds, but then the water came back again,\u201d Ali explains. It is part of the lot of farmers in this low-lying but economically important hub of Beletweyne, which provides services to surrounding rural communities.<\/p>\n
But Pawan was so intense that, in just a few days, parts of Somalia received as much rain as they normally would over an entire year.\u00a0 The scale of flooding it caused was worse than the typical inundations endured by farmers like Ali. And this time, with the rain, came the locusts.<\/p>\n
Rain and winds are two crucial elements that cause desert locusts to multiply and spread rapidly. Cyclone Pawan made the weather conditions that much more conducive to their multiplication, sparking the largest desert locust infestation to affect Somalia in generations.<\/p>\n
Considered the most destructive migratory pest in the world, the desert locust is highly mobile and can travel with the wind up to 150 km\/day.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst the water damaged my farm, then the desert locusts came and ate everything,\u201d Ali describes. \u201cBecause of the locusts, we lost everything on our farm. It became a failed season.\u201d
\nGearing up for the long haul<\/p>\n
In November 2020, nearly a year after Pawan abetted the first locust invasion, another such storm \u2014 the strongest to hit Somalia in recorded history, Cyclone Gati \u2014 dumped around two years-worth of rain on the country over the span of just a few days. Even after the unprecedentedly large locust control efforts of the preceding months, these rains provoked yet another round of breeding of the voracious insect in Somalia, as well as in nearby Ethiopia.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the recent invasion of a new generation of desert locusts, large areas of cropland and pasture are at risk of being damaged,\u201d says Ezana Kassa, FAO Emergency Coordinator in Somalia. \u201cThe impact can have severe consequences for agricultural, agropastoral and pastoral livelihoods in a context where food security is already fragile.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ali and about 2 500 other households in Beletweyne district received cash support from FAO to help them survive the desert locust invasion. Farming families also got seeds and tools to sustain their farming in the long-term.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe seeds arrived when we needed them the most. I do not have money to buy seeds, but at least I can plant them now,\u201d says Iraado.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe help that FAO gave us is very important because our lives depend on the land,\u201d Ali says. \u201cI hope in the future that these seeds that I am planting will change my life and the lives of my family members.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to helping farmers like Ali, FAO, with the generous support of its donors, is supporting governments in scaling up their locust containment operations to meet the renewed threat.<\/p>\n
In Somalia, the locust response is taking place alongside ongoing FAO efforts to help farmers diversify their crops and become more resilient to shocks like flooding or drought. This includes restoring river embankments to contain flooding and providing veterinary care to keep the livestock that millions of Somali pastoralists depend on healthy and strong.<\/p>\n