The FAO representative in Angola, Gherda Barreto, visited the province of Cuando Cubango, as part of the inter-ministerial commission created by the government to combat the locust plague.
According to Gherda Barreto, FAO is providing technical assistance to the inter-ministerial commission, which has drawn up a national plan for the control and monitoring of locusts.
"[FAO is] in this very specific mission to deliver capacity building to the community brigades, with the delivery of materials, so that they can help establish a network to control these locusts," said Gherda Barreto, in statements broadcast by Angolan public radio.
The official pointed out that the state has technologies available, stressing that a technological monitoring system will be installed using satellites.
"Working without Internet they will be able to send data from where the plague is identified," she indicated.
In his turn, the director of the provincial office of Agriculture and Fisheries, António Pereira Vicente, said that by now all the equipment is assembled in the municipality of Dirico, and the affected area has already been identified.
"We carried out the surveillance of the area, the survey, the spraying will begin," said the official, who pointed to thousands of hectares of area under surveillance, a more restricted perimeter affected and controlled, in a work budgeted at about $ 400,000.
The teams working in the field will have at their disposal atomizers, sprayers, computers and other means, which will allow communication about the situation.
Besides Cuando Cubango province, Cunene has also been affected by the invasion of the insect.
