The menacing locusts that are ravaging parts of Eastern Africa are proving hard to manage as governments desperately try all measures possible. Leaving a trail of destructions, the locusts have claimed many casualties including Kenya’s minister of Agriculture who was fired and decline in the GDP. Although in some places they might lead to famine, a few places like Western Kenya have experienced improved nutrition as people feast on them.
Efforts to contain them have also been diverse. Somalia choose to sit by and watch as there was little or no vegetation for them to eat, and people are used to food donations anyway. Kenya deployed police in partnership with Al-Shabaab to deal with the locusts while Tanzania issued a red alert thus denying the locusts landing rights. But it is Uganda that has resulted to technology to fight the creatures by using Blockchain technology to fight them.
Blockchain technology has been around for sometime now, and has been used increasingly in a number of fields. Not to be left behind, Uganda has opted to adopt this killer technology to kill locusts and the results are more than impressive.
Major General Samuel Kavuma who is in charge of the military operation of eradicating locusts said that their previous use of pesticides did not prove effective in fighting the insects, as they tend to fly away or just hop when approached by the soldiers. The soldiers, armed to teeth with knapsack sprayers, said that the locusts have a tendency of keeping off a radius of 10 meters from every soldier, which is longer than their sprayers range of 8 meters. This means that spraying has not been able to kill any insect.
But the entry of blockchain has been a game changer. Soldiers are now armed with stones (blocks) fastened to a sling (chain), where they hurl them into a field infested with locusts. The casualties have been massive and they expect to kill all the locusts within two weeks.
“It is like the story of David and Goliath,” said one soldier. “We are able to kill them in their millions, and from a distance due to the power of Blockchain.”
The Democratic republic of Congo is expected to follow suit.
Bonus story: Kenyans and locusts have something in common.
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