Based on Big Earth Data, the report was put together by an international team with 48 analysts from 11 countries, coordinated by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and issued on Feb. 29.
Crop conditions between October 2019 and January 2020 suffered from extreme weather conditions, such as heavy rainfall and floods in many parts of Africa, and the severe outbreak of desert locust expanding from the Arabian Peninsula into western Asia, East Africa to South-Asia.
According to the report, the impact of the desert locust on cereal production in Horn of Africa and South-Asia is yet limited, while they have damaged rangeland and orchards and threated the livestock over those regions, e. g.,
pastures in Somalia were damaged by desert locusts. If locusts should further spread to southern directions, they will threat maize production during the short rainy season.
CAS news releae, March 6, 2020