(OPINION) Michael Snyder – Billions upon billions of voracious desert locusts are ravenously devouring crops over a vast portion of the globe that stretches from eastern Africa all the way to India. This unprecedented plague was supposed to be subsiding by now, but instead, a fourth generation of locusts has emerged that is producing swarms that are “up to 8,000 times larger” than what we witnessed earlier this year.
Some of these swarms are the size of major cities, they can travel up to 150 kilometers a day, and when they descend upon a farm they can literally eat everything there in as little as 30 seconds. Because these swarms are not affecting the United States, most Americans don’t understand the immense devastation that is happening on the other side of the globe right now. The UN is warning that mass starvation is coming, and we are being told that it is going to begin by the end of this calendar year.
Each desert locust is very small, but collectively they can consume vast amounts of food. According to the UN, a swarm that contains between 40 and 80 million locusts can eat “the same amount of food in a day as three million people”.
And it is important to remember that colossal swarms of locusts have been destroying countless farms day after day for many months. What we have already witnessed is enough to constitute a major global emergency, and now the International Rescue Committee is telling us that this latest generation of locusts is the worst of them all by far…
“A fourth generation of desert locusts up to 8,000 times larger than previous swarms could destroy crops at the start of the hunger season and leave millions facing food insecurity and famine,” explained the aid organization in a statement.
When these swarms of locusts approach an area, they can be so thick that they literally block out the sun. Authorities have been spraying them with pesticides from the sky, but when you are talking about countless millions of locusts in a single swarm, killing thousands of them doesn’t exactly make too much of a dent. READ MORE
