The Ministry of Agriculture in Ethiopia is planning to purchase 5 helicopters to fight locusts using a USD$ 10 million loan from the World Bank.
The helicopters are expected to be procured from Germany and Israel.
Ethiopian government already has 5 planes, out of which two are used for surveillance and three for chemical spraying.
According to Capital Ethiopia online news outlet, Israel had already tried to help by providing “27 drones and equipment as well as offering training to combat the desert locusts.”
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has already confirmed that there is large scale breeding of locusts in Central Somalia and Eastern Ethiopia.
Ethiopian government estimates that there is approximately locusts on an area covering 225 km by 375 km located between the Shabelle River and the border of northern Somalia.
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