BARAKA – In a convoy of pickup trucks fitted with spray guns, soldiers zoom through Baraka' s hills leaving a trail of dust and bemused villagers in its wake.
The vehicles brake when the soldiers see the enemy: billions of invading desert locusts that have landed in a twitching swarm where a forested area meets farmland.
The deployment of soldiers among the usual agriculture officials is a testament to the seriousness of the threat as East Africa's locust outbreak continues well into a second year.
The young locusts arrive in waves from breeding grounds in Somalia, where insecurity hampers the response. It's the beginning of the planting season in Kenya, but the delayed rains have brought a small amount of optimism in the fight against the