Published by
Mongabay
Mongabay
In May 2022, the largest locust infestation in a quarter century descended on South Africa’s Eastern Cape, stripping five million hectares (19,305 square miles) of grazing land. With another swarm predicted for September, the arrival of spring in the Southern Hemisphere, farmers in the vast 168,966 km² (65,238 sq. mi.) province have joined with researchers to introduce a high-tech innovation — a software package to track locust swarms in real time in the hopes of targeting them for extermination before they cause severe damage. This will mark the first time the cutting edge software is used to…