Swarms of locusts from Africa to the Canary Islands: why FAO speaks of the “most destructive migratory plague”

Darkened skies, insects everywhere, incredulous tourists. In the last few hours videos and photos from the Canary Islands show swarms of locusts driven by calima – the hot wind loaded with Saharan sand – up to Lanzarote, Tenerife, Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura. The images have made the rounds on social media, evoking “biblical plague” scenarios.

Local authorities activated extraordinary environmental monitoring for 48 hours. Second Francisco Fabeloresponsible for the Environment of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, the next few days will be decisive: if the specimens arrived are adults and weakened by the journey, they could die without reproducing. The real risk would arise only in the case of mating and egg-laying.

But historical memory weighs heavily: in 1958 an invasion of locusts devastated tomato and potato crops in the south of Tenerife, after another serious infestation which occurred a few years earlier

From the Canary Islands to the Sahara: a broader phenomenon

Behind the Spanish episode there is a regional dynamic involving North-West Africa. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has reported significant movements of Schistocerca gregaria between Mauritania, Western Sahara and Morocco, favored by unusually abundant winter rains.

When rainfall transforms arid areas of the Sahara and Sahel into temporary green expanses, locusts find ideal conditions to feed and reproduce. In just a few weeks the population can multiply up to twenty times. It is in this phase that the insects switch from solitary to gregarious behavior, forming compact swarms capable of traveling up to 150 kilometers a day.

The FAO defines the desert locust as “the most destructive migratory plague in the world”: a swarm of one square kilometer can contain up to 80 million individuals and consume the equivalent of the food of around 35 thousand people in one day.

Agriculture at risk (more than tourism)

In the Canary Islands, locusts do not pose a direct danger to people, but they could hit vineyards and horticultural crops hard if they were to reproduce. Which is why the Government of Lanzarote maintains a state of alert, while currently ruling out a large-scale infestation.

The real fear concerns the already fragile areas of West Africa. The great crisis of 2019-2021 in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula has shown how quickly the situation can degenerate: according to the FAO, only thanks to coordinated interventions on over 2 million hectares in 10 countries was an even more serious food disaster avoided.

Needless to say, extreme meteorological events – intense rains, cyclones, variations in winds – are key factors in triggering locust invasions. Scientists point out that increasing climate variability can amplify these cycles, creating conditions favorable for reproduction in normally arid areas.

For now, the situation remains under control in the Canary Islands. But the images arriving from tourist cities are a powerful reminder: when the climate changes, biological balances also shift. And what seems like a spectacular episode can become, elsewhere, a real threat to food security.