Maghreb states launch urgent call to EU to help combat locusts
Regional-European Union, Economics, 12/1/2004

Secretary General of the Maghreb Arab Union (UMA), Habib Boulares, launched, on Tuesday, an urgent call to the European Union (EU) to contribute to the fight of locusts in the Maghreb region.

Boulares told a Euro-Mediterranean ministerial conference held in Hague that the situation is deteriorating in the region, notably in Mauritania, underscoring the repercussions of locusts invasion on UMA countries, namely Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia, said UMA in a release, noting that several states in the south of the Mediterranean as well as some islands are affected by locusts swarms.

UMA Secretary General recalled the efforts made by Maghreban states to face this plague in cooperation with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), voicing hope that the Euro-Mediterranean partnership will also be concretised in combating locusts.

At a meeting held recently in Gammarth (Tunisia), Maghreban ministers of Agriculture called on the international community to reinforce the capacities of countries in the region to combat locusts, that can eat their own weight in food each day.

Earlier this month, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned that up to 50 percent of Mauritania's cereal production might be lost after swarms of locusts devoured their way through crops in the country.

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