While the world is focusing its attention on containing the spread of the novel coronavirus, huge swarms of locusts are wreaking havoc in East Africa, which is already vulnerable to food shortages.

Farmers reportedly looked on in horror as desert locusts moving in vast cloud-like swarms darkened the sky. The insects devoured fields of crops at an astonishing pace, decimating livelihoods in the process. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the desert locust is considered the most dangerous of the many species of locusts. It poses a major food security threat in desert areas and swarms of locust have now spread to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and India.

It is indeed necessary for the FAO and experts from the developed world to extend a helping hand to East African countries that have been hit the hardest by the locust plague.

But effective measures must be adopted to prevent the cloud-like swarms of insects from spreading to a larger part of the world as the reproduction capacity of such insects is alarmingly great. Since the population of locusts can multiply 400 times every six months, it is not only necessary to kill the vast swarms of insects, it is equally important to effectively kill the eggs that have been laid.

With this in mind, Chinese authorities have dispatched 100,000 ducks to the border with Pakistan and India as the locusts continue to swarm eastward. Ducks have proven in the past to be more effective and environmentally friendly than pesticides.

But while doing whatever we can to contain the plague of desert locust, what is worth serious consideration is the question of how such small insects can form such large swarms and wreak such havoc for humans.

Apparently cyclones have created the natural conditions conducive to the breeding of the insects. Cyclones hit East Africa twice in 2018 and once in December 2019, which has fueled the population of desert locusts.

If this trend continues, there will quite likely be an increased frequency of cyclones in the Indian Ocean and then it is likely there will be an increased frequency of desert locust plagues.

The fact that the frequency of extreme weather conditions is increasing rapidly all over the world points to the embarrassing situation we humans are caught in: By developing industries of all kinds, we have considerably raised our living standards, but at the same time, the greenhouse gases discharged in the process have brought about climate change. The balance between man and nature is broken. We urgently need to restore it.