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OPINION

By Giregon Olupot

November, the month popularly known as the month of nsenene (grasshoppers), a delicacy in central Uganda, is coming to and end. Many are in tears counting losses after investing heavily in a lucrative business that could have already eluded them.

Climate change manifesting in form of the ongoing onslaught of torrential el nino rains, is being blamed for the non-appearance of the nsenene, but that could be only part (if at all) of the story.

Central Uganda is one of the leading regions in Uganda in the abuse and misuse of agrochemicals and pesticides in particular.

A survey we conducted in Container Village in 2014 revealed that herbicides (the pesticides used to control weeds) account for 67% of pesticide use in central Uganda.

Farmers have found it convenient to defoliate the land using toxic chemicals (pesticides) as an alternative to tillage that is deemed to be labour-intensive and costly.

The most popular herbicides deployed to defoliate the land in preparation for planting or to control weeds in perennial crops like bananas and coffee as well as annuals like maize are glyphosate popular known by various names such as Roundup, Weed Master, Weed Go, etc. and 2,4-D.

A combination of glyphosate and 2,4-D was branded ‘Agent Orange’ when America deployed the mixture to recklessly defoliate vegetation via aerial sprays during the Vietnamese war.

The purpose was to starve the enemy forces by destroying the vegetation that provided them with food (equivalent to the massive felling of mango trees in northern Uganda to starve the LRA rebels then).

Along with Agent Orange, farmers also use atrazine, another notorious herbicide and where resistance is encountered, multiple herbicides are combined with the hope of improving the efficacy of the defoliation. Besides herbicides, farmers also use a range of pesticides in particular insecticides (pesticides used to control insect pests).

These pesticides have devastating effects on other living organisms that depend on vegetation for nutrition. Grasshoppers for example, are herbivorous (feed on grass).

When exposed to high pesticide residues in sprayed grass, grasshoppers and their young can be decimated. Consumers of these grasshoppers can also be exposed to pesticide residues with detrimental health consequences.

So drastic can be the effects of human activity that impacts too can be drastic on a large scale. The decimation of monarch butterflies and bees through the use of Agent Orange and neonicotinoid pesticides to near extinction in the US led to enactment of an executive order.

The executive order provided for the establishment of exclusion zones for genetically modified organisms (GMOs), effectively banning cultivation of GMOs at a specified radius away from America’s national parks and all heritage sites.

Not only are GMOs associated with massive and reckless abuse and misuse of pesticides; some of them have actually been genetically engineered to produce these killer pesticides. Others GMO crops have been engineered to hyper-accumulate the weed killers without harming them, transferring the harm to consumers.

Persistent use of pesticides without regulation increases resistance, resulting in the increased use of such toxins.

This could be the most probable reason for the disappearance of nsenene and their extinction could be looming, if their habitat is not healed. Nsenene could have also suffered the loss of their habitat.

These grasshoppers feed on a particular vegetation that is not so common, but localised within central Uganda.

There are so many changes to land use and management taking place without planning, some of which involve the massive clearing of vegetation.

The mapping out of the hotspots of nsenene, exclusion of any pesticide activities and conservation of such landscapes will be key in the restoration of such habitats and rejuvenation of nsenene.

The writer is a lecturer in the School of Agricultural Sciences, Makerere University