UAE officials are stepping up efforts to safeguard farms against the threat of swarms of locusts which have descended on parts of Saudi Arabia and Yemen in recent weeks.
Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority said it was exterminating insects found in Al Sila, an area of the emirate close to the border with Saudi Arabia.
The authority warned farmers against collecting or touching locusts in the area in a notice posted on Twitter.
Last month, the department carried out exterminations in Dalma Island using pesticides.
Dr Mohammed Al Hammadi, acting director of communication and community service, said the authority was working closely with an international body that monitors locust movements to ensure swift action and reduce potential crop loss.
Dr Al Hammadi said the authority would work with farmers to keep them informed on any locust movements and encourage them to report any issues. He urged farmers not to burn farm waste or start fires to smoke out the insects. He also warned against collecting or eating the locusts to avoid health risks.
Millions of locusts invaded farms and agricultural areas in Riyadh, Qassim, Hail and the Eastern Province in Saudi Arabia in recent few weeks.
Agriculture chiefs said they were prepared to “confront any desert locust swarms coming from the breeding areas in the Arabian Peninsula and the Red Sea coasts”.
The swarms of billions of locusts have also been destroying crops in Kenya, which hasn’t had such an outbreak in 70 years, as well as Somalia and Ethiopia, which last had comparable swarms a quarter of a century ago.
The insects have exploited favourable wet conditions after unusually heavy rains, and experts say climate change is expected to bring more of the same.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation, a UN agency, have warned that, if unchecked, the locust population in the region could be 500 times greater by June.
ARTICLE TWO
This article was written in September 2019 in relation to the locust invasion in Yemen by religionunplugged.com
Yemenis Debate Whether Swarm Of Locusts During Famine Is Halal, A Blessing Or Curse
Swarms of locusts devastated crops in Yemen this summer. The plague of insects has occurred in several countries around the world in recent years but presents the most severe threat to people there and at the India-Pakistan border, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Crops of lentils, peas, barley, carrots and garlic suffered a lot of damage in the Bani Matar District where al-Jawfi lives, he said. The Hamdan District to the north was spared. Hamdan is known for growing khat, chewed as a stimulant similar to tobacco. The locusts don’t like it
A spice vendor sits next to three sacks of dried locusts outside the main gate of Old City of Sanaa. Photo by Yemeni contributor.
Between the districts is Yemen’s largest city, Sana’a. It is controlled by Houthi rebels who have been at war with the Saudi-backed Yemeni government since 2015. Al-Jawfi, 32, sat outside the Old City of Sana’a with a sack of cooked locusts, which are fried in oil and often eaten with rice or bread. He bartered with potential customers, asking 150 Yemeni rial per scoop, about 60 cents.
Yemen’s civil war has worsened a famine that started in 2016, with 20 million Yemenis (70% of the population) facing food insecurity and 10 million “one step away from famine,” according to the U.N. Saudi Arabian-led air strikes have killed civilians and targeted water sources, while blockades have restricted and slowed humanitarian aid.
While crop-destroying swarms of locusts present an obvious threat in such conditions, they also act as a bumper crop. Residents in Sana’a took to their roofs with nets to collect the flying insects, which many Yemenis believe have health benefits for certain conditions, like diabetes.
“It is a good food because it eats from all kinds of crops,” said Ahmed Rabia, a scholar of Islam in Sana’a. He was standing with Saleh al-Muqri, another elder scholar, inside the city’s ancient Grand Mosque. Islamic scriptures date the mosque to the time of the Prophet Muhammad.
The men discussed the locusts’ religious meaning, oscillating between two interpretations: punishment and blessing.
“Locusts were sent by Allah as a warning for all people wherever they were,” Rabia said. “When locusts arrive, people should fear Allah and return to him through repentance.”
The insect is mentioned twice in the Quran. One is as a punishment for the Israelites, Rabia said. He cited the scripture: “So we sent upon them the flood and locusts and lice and frogs and blood as distinct signs, but they were arrogant and were a criminal people.”
The second reference uses them as a metaphor for life after death: “Their eyes humbled, they will emerge from the graves as if they were locusts spreading.”
To al-Jawfi, it could go either way. He quoted another verse: “Locusts are like the rain, where God is ‘afflicting therewith whom He pleases and turning it away from whom He pleases,'” he said.
Another vendor in the market near the Old City’s main gate was selling locusts beside his other goods. Abdul-Majeed Hamid said the insects are clearly a blessing, eaten by many to treat hypertension and diabetes.
Yet another man, Abdullah Al Sayaghi, said he has diabetes and doesn’t believe locusts are a remedy. “I’ve eaten a tumbler and nothing changed,” he said.
Yemeni kids eat dried locusts from a bag. Photo by Yemeni contributor.
The two interpretations don’t contradict each other, said Rabia. The Prophet Muhammad declared locusts halal, or permissible to eat. That applies even if they are sent as a warning, he said.
His companion al-Muqri disagreed. He said the locusts sent to the people of Pharaoh, as the Israelites are called in the Quran, had a different effect than those that filled the air this summer.
“When Allah sent locusts, frogs and lice to Moses’s people, it was locusts that eat wood and doors,” al-Muqri said. “It wasn’t like nowadays’ locusts that are a blessing.”
He has been eating locusts since the 1970s, as have generations of Yemenis.
As the discussion continued, someone invited a man passing by to give his view. The man, who did not give his name but said he was a soldier, rejected any idea that there could be different interpretations and insisted that the Prophet does not permit locust-eating.
The Quran is clear because Allah made it understandable– any Arabic speaker can read and understand it without help from scholars, he said.
He believes that some Sunni scholars have manipulated the Prophet Muhammad’s words until they contradict the Quran, only to serve themselves over Allah. “Those who destroyed Islam are the ones who circulate Hadiths [Prophet’s sayings] that are only in their own interest,” he said.
In short, he believes Yemenis are eating God’s punishment. He urged the gathered men to consider that the locusts don’t eat khat, perhaps to their benefit.
“We Yemenis eat it. We have become worse than locusts,” he said.
Eating locusts, he added, amounts to punishing Allah’s punishment.
But most Yemenis take a lighter view. After the people of Sana’a significantly diminished one swarm in about three days, a boy mocked them on YouTube. The locusts urged the U.N. to help them get out of Yemen, he said. They were being shot at, chased and eaten. “We were 80 million,” he said. “Now we are only one million.”
The writer is a Yemeni journalist reporting from Yemen whose identity we are concealing for safety.
