Horizon - Man and science today

Swarms of locusts are on the move. From India to West Africa and from the Mediterranean to Tanzania there is a real threat of plague.

The desert locust has been in recession for several years, but for some two years now it has been breeding quietly, unseen, in the vastness of the Empty Quarter in Southern Arabia, in the southern Sahara, and along the shores of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Huge swarms appeared last spring and summer and by the autumn the experts were prophesying the worst plague for many years-a plague that could threaten one-fifth of the land surface of the world and threaten the food supplies of millions of people. In spite of technical advances in insect control there is a danger that it is already too late to prevent major damage being done by the locust across vast areas of the world.
A Horizon unit spent several weeks filming at the 'storm-centre' of the plague in Ethiopia.
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