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Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

Not well, there are documented cases of locust swarms bringing down small planes, and causing emergencies on large planes.

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...as recently as 2 weeks ago, no less https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51098209

Thank you, suspected as much but just didn't know. Was pondering drone fishing fleets harvesting such swarms, back to the mental drawing board then for me.

I understand that, we can make 'high protein flour' out of crickets[1] it seems like we should be able to process Locusts into some sort of protein source for human consumption.

But it is really hard to actually visualize/imagine these swarms without actually being there in one. The amount of infrastructure you would have to deploy essentially on a short term basis[2] is really infeasible with current technology.

[1] https://www.cricketflours.com/

[2] Swarms are a function of environmental conditions, they grow exponentially but they die quickly when conditions change, it is the series of monsoons at the right time that have made this one so big. In "regular" years they are much smaller.

Locust are crickets so yes you would be able to

That would mitigate the problem, but I don't think that could be used as a food source to replace what they destroyed, they eat up to their own weight per day, however insect digestion is pretty inefficient, they leave a lot of nutrients behind, so eating them up would only partially replace the losses.

Also catching a substantial fraction of a swarm that is spread over a very very large area and moves by up to 150 km a day would be very hard, and is largely impossible currently.

Exactly. The thought though was that if you created systems for processing locusts into flour around the area then that might incentivize people to catch and bring them locusts. If that became a regular thing it would keep populations down so that even in ideal swarm conditions the growth would not be as severe.

And it could provide an indigenous economic stream, always a good thing in Africa.

Honestly I think battery-powered drones with hardened or screened props would have the best shot against locusts. One of the main vulnerabilities for aircraft is the need to intake fresh air for combustion. This doesn't apply to drones. They also navigate using RF sensors and fly slow enough to avoid much collision damage. The locusts might start landing on them which could easily become incompatible with controlled flight, but that's the only thing that comes to mind.

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