Locusts Hit Key African Rice-Growing District - Reuters

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BAMAKO - "West Africa's worst locust plague for 15 years has encroached on one of the region's largest rice-growing areas, authorities in Mali .

Massive swarms have infested thousands of km (miles) of land from the Atlantic coast to landlocked Chad in the last two months, already causing substantial damage to grain crops.
Officials in Mali said they had taken steps such as digging trenches to protect the Office du Niger, a large area of irrigated land developed under French colonial rule, from so-called hopper bands of young locusts that cannot yet fly.

But swarms of the older flying locusts have arrived this week at the edge of the area in Southern Mali, which covers 65,000 hectares (160,000 acres) and provides some 400,000 tons of paddy rice - around half the country's annual rice needs.

"The Office du Niger has been the subject of special attention in the fight against the locusts, we put a protective ring around the zone to counter the hopper bands," said Agriculture Ministry official Yaya Diarra."

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