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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, SEPTEMBER 16, 1986
While long-awaited rains coupled with an
relief effort have ameliorated conditions in
of neighboring Sudan, wracked by an incipient
·the onset of extreme food shortages.
PAGE 13
unprecedented international
·
Ethiopia, the southern part
civil uprising, is reporting
But there is a sign of far worse things to come. For the first time in 50
years, all the continent's main populations of locusts are gathering to
swarm, according to reports in several British newspapers in late August.
Armies of Senegal locusts in West Africa, the Desert variet.y along the
shores of the Red Sea, Migratory and Red locusts in East Africa and the
Brown locust in southern Africa are all- poised to march.
These expected outbreaks could have been contained, at least in part. But
Africa's civil wars and overall economic deterioration have led to a
severe cutback in national and regional pest control agencies.
In
addition, the rains which broke droughts in parts of Africa also provided
the necesssary damp conditions the locust eggs need to hatch. "When the
rains fail, the crops do not grow and there is famine," reported THE
OBSERVER of Britain, ruefully. "When the rains come, the crops grow, but
so do the locusts--and there is still famine."
ome experts fear that 1986 may see the beginning of several consecutive
years of locust infestation. In late August the Food and Agricultural
Organization announced an emergency action plan to try to prevent, said
THE OBSERVER, "a calamity of Biblical proportions." It may not be able
to. The 24th chapter of Matthew predicts that famines and pestilences
(verse 7) would be a hallmark of the end-time age. And the book of Joel
speaks of locust plagues when "the day of the Lord is at hand" (Joel 1:4,
15) .
Elsewhere--Food Glut, Threats of Food Wars Africa, from all indications,
is going to be a purden on the rest of the world from now to the end of
this age.
This despite the fact that Africa is better endowed with
agricultural potential than the other continents. Africa's agricultural
area totals nearly 400 million acres, second only to Asia's 403 million
acres (and far more people).
Africa's agricultural crisis is mostly attributed to governmental policies
which hamper food production. (When droughts come, African countries have
no reserves to fall back on.) In nation after nation, farmers have little
incentive to grow food other than for themselves. They are forced to sell
to government marketing boards which pay prices barely covering costs of
production. Some African nations have implemented disastrous agricultural
programs emphasizing state farms and collectives.
There are very few bright spots in Africa, most notably the Ivory Coast
and Malawi, which have increased food production to become net exporters.
Nearly everywhere else, the picture is grim. The Fall 1985 JOURNAL OF
SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC STUDIES reports:
What is so striking is that the collapse of African agriculture
parallels equally dramatic increases in food production in
every other region of the world During the 1970s per capita
food production increased by nine percent in both North and
South America, six percent in Asia and Oceana and 17 percent in