This calendar provides some practical advice on safety measures to be adopted by local populations, farmers, shepherds, beekeepers and municipalities before, during and after locust control operations: as long as conventional chemical insecticides are used, precautions should be taken to minimize adverse effects on human health and the environment. Beyond English and Russian, the calendar is available in Farsi, Kyrgyz and Dari. It was despatched, mainly by the national services in charge of locust management, to local populations in Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan during the 2018 locust campaigns. The calendar was realized by FAO with financial support from Japan/ Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) as well as FAO Regular Programme.

The Information Sheet on locust management in Caucasus and Central Asia (CCA) provides an overview on the main results achieved by the “Programme to improve national and regional locust management in CCA” since its start. It also introduces the way forward to the Programme, based on common objectives for the coming years. Overall, the Programme relies to the key concepts of the locust preventive control strategy consisting of timely monitoring of locust habitats and populations; early warning and subsequent early reaction indeed lead to reduced damage on crops and rangelands, reduced negative impact of control operations on human health and the environment due to less use of chemicals and reduced costs. The Information Sheet was produced in the framework of the Food Chain Crisis (FFC)-Emergency Prevention System for Transboundary Animal and Plant Pests and Diseases (EMPRES).