By Andrew Gray
DAKAR, Oct 18 (Reuters) - The desert locust infestation that descended on West and Central Africa this year is likely to return in 2005 and officials will have to be better prepared to avoid major damage to crops, experts said on Monday.
The region's worst upsurge for more than a decade has affected an area stretching thousands of kilometres from the Atlantic Coast to landlocked Chad, bringing misery to subsistence farmers who have seen their fields destroyed.
The insects, which can form swarms of tens of millions taking up hundreds of square kilometres, are moving into north African states such as Algeria, Morocco and Libya after months in the semi-desert Sahel region because vegetation there is drying up.
But experts say the locusts, each capable of consuming its own two-gram bodyweight of food every day, are likely to start a new breeding cycle which could mean an even larger infestation heads back south in the middle of next year.
"We have a big probability that we will have ... a second generation which will be important and so the population will be bigger than what we had," said Said Ghaout, a locust expert with the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
Experts said countries should stockpile pesticides to prepare for the locusts' return and urged the creation of a more comprehensive monitoring system to warn of future infestations.
Although north African states are better equipped than their poorer sub-Saharan neighbours, the locusts could still harm their agriculture before heading south, the FAO cautioned.
"This is not the end of the story," said Edouard Tapsoba, FAO representative in Senegal, one of the countries worst affected this year along with Mauritania, Mali and Niger. "It is likely the situation is going to last for a couple of years."
Regional agriculture experts meeting last month in Senegal said West Africa may lose up to a quarter of a bumper grain harvest this year if the locusts are not brought under control. Experts hope to be able say how much has been lost within weeks.
FAO officials sounded the alarm a year ago about swarms in the region and the belated campaign has seen the Rome-based FAO, other international agencies, foreign donors and African governments all trading accusations of being too slow to act.
"It's clear that this year we have not won this battle against the locusts," Jos Van Aggelen, the Netherlands' ambassador to Senegal, told a news conference.
"It's important that we're better prepared next year for this fight," said Van Aggelen, representing the Dutch presidency of the European Union. The EU says it has given 50 million euros to fight locusts in the Sahel region.