Locusts are a species of grasshoppers that are solitary and pose little threat as a single insect, but when certain conditions cause them to form a swarm they can become highly devastating and dangerous to farmers and their crops.
A swarm could contain as much as over 100 million locusts, cover a distance of over 100km in a single day, destroy hundreds of hectares of crops and eat the same amount of food meant for about 90000 people in a single day.
It all started last year when small swarms started gathering in Ethiopia and Somalia to form larger swarms. It then became a full-blown infestation that ravaged through some East African countries with Kenya and Ethiopia taking the biggest blow.
Farmers in Kenya are reporting that in some places, the swarms form a cloud so thick that they could hardly see through the sky.
