MONITORING AND SOIL AMENDMENTS FOR LOCUST AND GRASSHOPPER MANAGEMENT:

A PILOT PROJECT IN THE KAFFRINE REGION OF

BI-ANNUAL REPORT

Submission Date: April 30, 2020

Agreement Number: 720FDA18GR00100 Activity Start Date and End Date: August 16, 2018 – August 15, 2021 AOR: Mr. Joseph Dever AO: Ms. Artaveya J. Carter

Submitted by: Alana Burnham, Community Outreach Specialist Arizona State University PO Box 878009 Tempe, AZ 85287 Tel: 865-300-4013 Email: [email protected]

Disclaimer: This report was made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development, Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA). The contents of this report are the sole responsibility of Arizona State University and the Global Locust Initiative and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

Table of Contents

1. Project Overview/Summary ...... 3 1.1 Acronyms and Abbreviations ...... 4 1.2 Background and Project Description ...... 5 1.3 Summary of Results to Date ...... 7

2. Activity Implementation Progress ...... 8 2.1 Progress Narrative ...... 8 2.2 Implementation Challenges ...... 10 2.3 Project Management Update ...... 10

3. Planned Activities for Next Reporting Period ...... 10

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1. PROJECT OVERVIEW/SUMMARY

Monitoring and Soil Amendments for Locust and Program Name: Grasshopper Management: A Pilot Project in the Kaffrine Region of Senegal

Activity Start Date And End August 16, 2018 – August 15, 2021 Date:

Name of Prime Implementing Arizona State University Partner:

Agreement Number: 720FDA18GR00100

McGill University; La Direction de la Protection des Végétaux; Major Counterpart Organizations Université de Gaston Berger; French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development

Geographic Coverage West Africa: Senegal, Mali, Niger (cities and or countries)

Reporting Period: October 1, 2020 to March 31, 2020

3 1.1 Acronyms and Abbreviations

AGRHYMET Centre Régional de Formation et d'Application en Agrométéorologie et Hydrologie Opérationnelle ASU Arizona State University CIRAD French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development CNLA Centre National de Lutte Antiacridienne CNLCP Centre National de Lutte contre le Criquet Pèlerin COS Community Outreach Specialist CP Cooperating Professor DGPV Direction Générale de la Protection des Végétaux DPV La Direction de la Protection des Végétaux EWS Early Warning System GLI Global Locust Initiative JIRCAS Japanese International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences MU McGill University OPV Office de la Protection des Végétaux OSE Oedaleus senegalensis (Senegalese locust) PI Principal Investigator RECA-Niger Réseau National des Chambres d'Agriculture du Niger SA Soil Amendment UGB Université de Gaston Berger USAID United States Agency for International Development

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1.2 Background and Project Description Background

Locusts and grasshoppers are formidable pests of crops across the globe, more so among subsistence farmers in low-income countries where appropriate pest surveillance, monitoring, and management are difficult to implement. The Senegalese grasshopper (Oedaleus senegalensis, OSE) is considered the most severe agricultural pest in the West African Sahel region, where it feeds on grass crops commonly grown by subsistence farmers. Over a seven-year period from 1986 to 1992, grasshopper control, predominately of OSE, across the Sahel cost an estimated $177 million dollars1. In Senegal, locust and grasshopper infestations are second only to drought in damaging agricultural productivity, and in parts of Niger, an estimated 20–40% of grass crops, such as millet and rice, were lost in a single growing season.2 In Mali, grasshoppers destroy an estimated 70–90% of crops at least every 5 years.3 OSE is a chronic pest species in these areas, and outbreaks can severely constrain income and food security of rural farmers. Not only do outbreaks directly threaten the livelihoods of farmers in these regions, but also they can have far-reaching consequences, such as greatly lowering the educational attainment of children due to the redirection of household resources.4

West African rural farmers may not have access to technologies and formalized knowledge networks for preventing, monitoring, and controlling outbreaks. Though government pest control institutions may help farmers monitor and treat for locusts in many of these areas, they often lack adequate capacity in workers, field vehicles, access to chemical pesticides, and time. Scarcity of resources may impede organizations’ abilities to conduct regular activities, limiting long-term monitoring. Though synthetic pesticides are the main method for controlling outbreaks in many countries, they only protect crops from locusts over the short-term, and continued applications are required to prevent re-occurrences. Frequently there is a mismatch in time between availability of resources and when locusts cause the most severe damage. Many field agents are also personally concerned about extensive pesticide use, in part because their personal protective equipment is limited and of poor quality, and for the potential environmental externalities. Finally, while individual farmers are the most impacted by locusts, the migratory nature of the pest requires that some management decisions happen at the regional, national, or international levels. While high-level management is effective for treating upsurges, it limits farmers' abilities to control treatment decisions, such as the timing and type of practices employed on their farms. To alleviate human suffering and reduce the social and economic impact of locusts, farmers need access to long-term solutions for locust monitoring and management.

Project Description

In response to agriculture and food security needs, the Global Locust Initiative (GLI) and its partners developed a novel methodology for management of OSE, which was successfully piloted in villages in the Kaffrine and Fatick during Phase I of this project (August 2018–August 2020). Kaffrine and Fatick are top cereal-producing regions in Senegal, yet populations have still been subject to high levels of food insecurity. Phase I of this project helped increase productivity in the short term for these regions through significant capacity building efforts of farmers and the use of soil amendments on local farms. This phase also provided additional understanding of how to use OSE biology for locust abatement in the long-term, and saw the implementation of a two-part intervention in central Senegal:

1 Maiga, I. H., Lecoq, M., & Kooyman, C. (2008). Ecology and management of the Senegalese grasshopper Oedaleus senegalensis (Krauss 1877) (Orthoptera: Acrididae) in West Africa: Review and prospects. Annales de La Societe Entomologique de France, 44, 271–288. 2 Cheke, R., L.D.C.Fishpool, & G.A.Forrest. (1980). Oedaleus senegalensis (Krauss) (Orthoptera: Acrididae: Oedipodinae): the 1977 outbreak in West Africa and notes on eclosion under laboratory conditions. Acrida, 9, 107–132. 3 Jago, N. D., Kremer, A. R., & West, C. (1993). Pesticides on millet in Mali. NRI Bulletin, 50, 52. 4 De Vreyer, P., Guilbert, N., & Mesple-Somps, S. (2015). Impact of Natural Disasters on Education Outcomes: Evidence from the 1987-89 Locust Plague in Mali. Journal of African Economies, 24, 57–100.

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1. Use of fertilizer to improve soils and create unfavorable environments for locusts. In contrast to many herbivores, locusts prefer and grow faster when eating high carbohydrate/low nitrogen (i.e. unfertilized) plants. The use of soil fertilization is underutilized as a method for inhibiting locusts, even though it improves crop productivity and helps farmers reduce their reliance on chemical control (i.e., via state-level agencies such as La Direction de la Protection des Végétaux or DPV). To address this issue, one hundred farmers in two rural communes in Kaffrine () and Fatick (Gossas) were trained on proper millet cultivation techniques and were given fertilizer to apply to their one-hectare millet fields. These fields were surveyed throughout the project lifetime for locust activity and potential crop damage. Each farmer cultivated another one-hectare field without the addition of fertilizer; these served as the control. This was the Soil Amendment (SA) intervention. 2. Increased scientific capacity for locust monitoring at the village-level. By enhancing local capacity to identify and report locust activity, the project has led to better forecasting of local OSE population increases. In turn, this information has enabled better communication about the risk of locusts among farmers, village-leaders, the DPV, and others to enable timely response in advance of the hazard of locusts. Furthermore, it has empowered individuals to reduce their reliance on the DPV, and ultimately, the reliance on chemical treatments. Altogether, the process has enabled the development of an Early Warning System (EWS) related to OSE for the Kaffrine and Fatick Regions. In total, fifty-two women in five local communities in Kaffrine and Fatick regions (Nganda, Gniby, Boulel, Mbar, and Gossas) were trained on identification of OSE and monitoring of grasshopper and locust populations using light traps installed in nearby fields. Two women from each community were trained on monitoring grasshoppers and locusts directly in fields. The second phase of the project (September 2020–August 2021) will expand on the success of Phase I, widening its reach to other regions in Senegal and larger West Africa. Objectives include: 1. Scaling the implementation of the soil amendment intervention. The collaborating professor at Université de Gaston Berger (UGB) will scale up the implementation of the Soil Amendment intervention to include farmers in Thiès and Saint-Louis, in addition to the Phase I participants in Kaffrine and Fatick. Two hundred and fifty farmers in total across the four regions will receive both fertilizer and improved seeds and will apply the soil amendment intervention to one hectare and keep another hectare as a control. GLI will seek to include at least 80 women, 50 of them from the Phase I EWS.5 All participants will be trained in pest identification, ISRA recommendations for fertilizer use, and soil improvement through increased woody vegetation, retaining crop residues, and composting. 2. Leveraging the intervention implementation to create models and explore decision tools. Because swarming grasshoppers are migratory, any proposed interventions cannot focus on only the farm level and must include village- and landscape-level approaches. However, there are no models that could be adapted for regional leaders to make informed decisions about when, how, and at what scale to direct soil amendment interventions to suppress swarming grasshopper populations and decrease damage to crops. The French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) will lead the development of models to assist regional leaders in determining how many farmers and communities need to participate in the intervention to maintain pest populations below densities determined acceptable by each region. After the models are developed, they will be workshopped with community leaders, as well as regional and national level decision makers, increasing opportunities for adoption of community-based intervention techniques across larger scales. 3. Addressing land tenure security to improve adoption of the intervention. McGill University (MU) will leverage the intervention implementation to address how land tenure security impacts

5 Upon consultation with country experts and reflection on the success of our prior initiatives with women, we now seek to include women in Objective 1. Directly providing some of the key inputs (i.e., fertilizer and high-quality millet seeds) will enable women farmers to overcome previous barriers to participation and take part in millet farming.

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adoption of the intervention. Clear, secure, and equitable access to land improves landholder’s confidence that investments in land and property now will pay off into the future. Therefore, investments into agricultural management such as soil amendments are much more likely to be seen as beneficial when rights are secure. Two lines of work will be carried out in support of Objective 3: an empirical analysis of GLI’s and MU’s ongoing data collection, and dissemination of lessons learned to community beneficiaries. 4. Expanding the reach of identification, monitoring, & intervention training tools. The project’s Community Outreach Specialist (COS) will lead the development of pest identification, monitoring, and intervention training tools tailored to the pests and culture of neighboring regions by working with partners in Senegal, Mali, and Niger. By providing resources for learning and teaching identification, monitoring techniques, and novel intervention methods, this objective will increase the capacity of farmers to manage pest outbreaks on the community-level. In sum, these integrated activities will scale community-based pest intervention techniques across geographic ranges and governance levels, increasing adoption and reducing the social and economic impacts of locusts and grasshoppers.

1.3 Summary of Results to Date

Phase I Results (August 2018–August 2020) Phase I Percent Agriculture and Food Security: Pests Phase I Disaggrega Disaggregation Cumulative of Target and Pesticides Target Total tion Achieved

Number of people trained in 1 100 100 men 100 100 100% appropriate crop protection practices

Number and percentage of hectares 80; 89; 89; 2 protected against disease or pest 80% N/A 89% 89% 111% attacks (80/100) (89/100) (89/100)

Number and percentage of people 80; 89; 89; 3 practicing appropriate crop 80% 80 men 89% 89% 111% protection procedures (80/100) (89/100) (89/100)

Number of people trained in locust 131 131 100 men; 4 identification and monitoring 150 (79 men; (79 men; 87% 50 women practices (custom indicator) 52 women) 52 women)

100 men; 100 men; Cumulative beneficiaries 150 152 101% 50 women 52 women

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Phase II Results (September 2020–September 2021) Phase II Percent Agriculture and Food Security: Pests Phase II Disaggregation Cumulative of Target and Pesticides Target Total Achieved

Number of people trained in 170 men 1 250 06 0% appropriate crop protection practices 80 women

Number and percentage of hectares 200; 2 protected against disease or pest 80% N/A 05 0% attacks (200/250)

Number and percentage of people 200; 136 men 3 practicing appropriate crop 80% 05 0% 64 women protection procedures (200/250) Number of printed pest identification, monitoring, and intervention training 4 tools distributed among 1000 N/A 07 0% participating/partnering organizations (custom indicator) Number of organizations adopting pest identification, monitoring, and 5 intervention training tools as a part of 4 N/A 06 0% their community outreach activities (custom indicator)

170 men Cumulative beneficiaries 250 80 women

2. ACTIVITY IMPLEMENTATION PROGRESS

2.1 Progress Narrative

During this reporting period, GLI and its partners have completed the following milestones:

1. Organized kickoff meeting with project team and partnering organizations. On February 17th, 2021, GLI organized a virtual kickoff meeting with partners from CIRAD, MU, UGB, and DPV. GLI presented an overview of Phase I results. Parties also discussed each objective of Phase II, providing details on context, scope, schedule, and expected deliverables.

2. Established project timelines. GLI, CIRAD, UGB, and MU established timelines for each Objective’s implementation. After virtual meetings and email discussions, time periods for travel to Senegal, Arizona, and France for field work and sharing of results were agreed upon.

6 Training and distribution of supplies are planned to begin by June, 2021. 7 Tools are under development and are planned to be finalized by August, 2021.

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Objective 1 3. Defined criteria for participant selection. Team members from GLI, UGB, and MU held a virtual meeting to determine requirements for participant selection, based on lessons learned from Phase 1 implementation.

4. Recruited expert consultants. The COS and collaborating professor at UGB worked together to recruit a Senegal-based consultant with extensive experience facilitating trainings and educational seminars with rural Senegalese farmers. Fluent in the predominant local language (Wolof) and French, this new team member will help GLI and UGB adapt the technical training content and delivery to best suit farmer capacity and the specific cultural content. In addition, GLI renewed the contract of the Phase 1 interlocutor consultant, who will again assist with recruitment, training, and other project activities in the Kaffrine and Fatick regions. As the former head of the Nganda Plant Protection Directorate station, this consultant will provide invaluable connections with local authorities and community leaders, as well as his specialized knowledge of local agriculture and pest management.

5. Met with representatives of Senegal’s Ministry of Agriculture in targeted areas and initiated participant selection. In February 2021, the collaborating professor at UGB met with representatives of Senegal’s Ministry of Agriculture in the Kaffrine, Gossas, Thiès and Saint-Louis areas. Discussion points included project goals, planned activities, and participant selection. Each representative committed to supporting the project. Following these meetings, the collaborating professor at UGB convened with Ministry of Agriculture representatives, community leaders, and relevant consultants in Fass Ngom, Touba Toul, Gossas, and Gniby in March to further discuss eligibility criteria and project plans. With their input, provisional lists of project participants were created for each targeted region, and these will be finalized before trainings are held later this year.

6. Began preparations for training of participants. The collaborating professor at UGB began to work with the training consultant on best approaches for communicating with farmers, creating materials for beneficiary training. These will be further refined in coming weeks.

Objective 2 6. Hired postdoctoral researcher and engaged subject matter experts. A postdoctoral researcher was recruited to lead the development of the model. As a native speaker of French and experienced researcher in non-scientific use of modelling outcomes, she is well qualified to collaborate with and communicate results to local communities in Senegal. CIRAD team members also networked with additional subject matter experts to collect relevant information and inform model design. Team members conversed with experts in locust ecology and physiology from the Japanese International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS) and ASU for data to calculate OSE consumption and growth rate, thus allowing the model to capture overall population dynamics more accurately. Project team members also collaborated with other senior researchers at CIRAD to obtain needed information on land cover, precipitation, and crop biomass in the targeted regions in Senegal.

7. Developed preliminary model for OSE population dynamics. The CIRAD team developed a preliminary agent-based model to describe OSE population dynamics. The model represented the agroecosystem in three regions of Senegal (Kaffrine, Fatick, and Saint-Louis) as realistically as possible according to several key environmental factors: photoperiod (or daylength), temperature, precipitation, and vegetation. The model also follows OSE’s reproductive pattern of three successive generations within one season. CIRAD developed the model using NetLogo, a free and open-source software that is readily accessible, user friendly, and easily adapted. Users will be able to adjust the model by changing parameters within the interface. Furthermore, the highly visual nature of models developed in NetLogo lend themselves well to participatory meetings with people of different backgrounds and education levels. Though the model is still in its development phase, preliminary results indicated that the model is successfully reproducing density patterns observed in the field, as well as site selection patterns similar to those observed in laboratory-based experiments.

Objective 4

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8. Identified stakeholders involved in pest management and outreach in Niger and Mali. The COS connected with subject matter experts at the Centre Régional de Formation et d'Application en Agrométéorologie et Hydrologie Opérationnelle (AGRHYMET) in Niger and the Centre National contre le Criquet Pèlerin (CNLCP) in Mali. Relying on these and other contacts, she was able to identify agencies involved in management of locusts and grasshoppers in these countries, including the Direction Générale de la Protection des Végétaux (DGPV), Office de la Protection des Végétaux (OPV), Réseau National des Chambres d'Agriculture du Niger (RECA-Niger), and Centre National de Lutte Antiacridienne (CNLA). In April, the COS will meet with these agencies, inviting them to partner in the development of locust identification and management tools.

9. Devised preliminary list of topics, languages, and species for community outreach tools. Through virtual meetings and email exchanges with subject matter experts, the COS solicited feedback on the approach, illustrations, content, and utility of Phase 1 community outreach tools (i.e., locust identification and management booklets). From these conversations, the COS also compiled a preliminary list of topics for proposed community outreach tools in Niger and Mali, determined possible languages for publication, and created a list of economically significant species for inclusion.

11. Released second editions of Phase 1 Senegal community outreach tools on GLI’s website. Second editions of the locust management and identification booklets developed in Phase 1 were publicly released on GLI’s website. GLI has included sharing guidelines, so that interested parties may adapt these works for other regions and/or languages.

12. Recruited illustrator and contacted potential local language translators for Niger and Mali community outreach tools. The COS contacted and rehired the illustrator who created the art from the Phase 1 booklets to adapt and expand the drawings for project’s second phase. In addition, she initiated contact with potential local language translators for Hausa and Djerma, common local languages in Niger.

Geographic Code 937 was followed in all purchases, as per the terms of the award. No vehicles were purchased or leased for this project.

2.2 Implementation Challenges

Due to the busy schedules of pest management stakeholder agencies as well as political unrest in the West African region in early 2021, meetings with these parties were difficult to arrange as scheduled. Furthermore, a transition in translation consultants contributed to the delay. As the contributions of these organizations are integral to the success and use of the proposed community outreach tools, content development was pushed back as well.

2.3 Project Management Update

The issues discussed will not impact GLI’s and partners’ abilities to achieve project objectives.

3. PLANNED ACTIVITIES FOR NEXT REPORTING PERIOD

April – May ● Finalization of list of participants for SAI

● Finish development of the model

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● Evaluation of the model’s parameter sensitivity through running short term simulations on the interface

● Exploration of intervention scenarios with the model

● Virtual meeting with potential partner agencies in Niger and Mali ● Continued refinement of outreach tool content, approach, and illustration

June – July ● Training of beneficiaries for SAI

● Distribution of seed and fertilizer ● Vegetative and locust surveys ● Continued exploration of intervention scenarios with the model ● Running of long-term simulations and analysis of sensitivity, robustness, and uncertainty

● Analysis of model outcome ● Continued refinement of outreach tool content, approach, and illustration ● Translation of outreach tool content ● Model field work in Senegal and presentation to community leaders

August ● Beneficiaries train other community members ● Continued vegetative and locust surveys

● Model feedback and updates ● Model synthesis and results visualization ● Finalization and piloting of outreach tools

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