How Kenya’s farmers are trying to outsmart locusts and climate change

As the risk of food insecurity rises, farmers in East Africa are having to adapt to ensure crops grow, reports Federica Marsi in Meru, Kenya

Farmer James Laiboni: ‘The work of three months was gone in a matter of seconds’ (Federica Marsi)

James Laboni had never seen anything like it in his lifetime. First came the screams, then the loud banging of pots and pans.

He ran breathlessly towards the maize fields, covering the short distance in just a few minutes. From a vantage point overlooking his property, the scale of the devastation was glaring.

“The work of three months was gone in a matter of seconds,” the 49-year-old farmer tells The Independent.