The Ministry of Food and Agriculture has assured measures are in place to protect Ghana from invasion by desert locusts as the Food and Agricultural Organisation warns the pests are headed towards West Africa.

With capacity to fly at 130 kilometers per day, they have caused vast devastation of crops in East Africa which is seeing the worst invasion in 25 years.

The FAO says wind is driving them towards West Africa. Head of Crop Protection at the Plant Protection and Regulatory Services Division Ebenezer Aboagye tells JoyNews they are on alert.

“We have alerted all our regional directors about the desert locusts. They have also alerted all our regional plant protection officers about the insects. We are also preparing technical leaflets for the staff. We are also going to publish an alert on the eminent locust in Ghana,” Mr. Aboagye said.

Mr. Aboagye added that they are reserving chemicals imported for use against the fall armyworm pests to deal with the Locust Pests if they arrive.

The best thing that can be used to control them during an invasion is the insecticides. We are even lucky we are already going through the process of procuring insecticides for the fall armyworms Ghana. It is almost complete. So assuming instead of fall armyworms we have this desert locust, we can quickly divert and mop it out.