UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Billions of locusts are tearing across East Africa, destroying crops and putting some 19 million people at risk of severe food insecurity. The United Nations has called for a rapid response to this food-security threat. Through a memorandum of understanding with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. (FAO), David Hughes, Penn State professor of entomology and biology and creator of PlantVillage, an initiative to empower farmers with agricultural knowledge and technologies, is answering this call. With U.N. support, he and his colleagues are fast-tracking the creation of a mobile app that locates and tracks the insects in order to assist in early warning and targeted spraying efforts.
During a briefing at the U.N. headquarters on Feb. 10, U.N. Humanitarian Chief Mark Lowcock, said, “I’m calling on the countries concerned, the international community, the donors, to step up and to step up now. There is a risk of a catastrophe. Perhaps we can prevent it; we have an obligation to try. Unless we act now, we’re unlikely to do so.”
Leveraging the two parties’ complementary skills — Penn State’s expertise in artificial intelligence, cloud computing and app development and FAO’s experience in data analysis — Penn State signed a memorandum of agreement with the FAO in January to facilitate their collaborative work to directly address the locust problem.
“PlantVillage is an example of how our faculty and staff are able to respond with innovative tools to meet critical international needs; in this case, a free mobile app that could help to protect the food supply of millions of people,” said Penn State President Eric J. Barron. “Creating and applying knowledge that is of value to society around the globe is a core part of our mission as a modern land-grant university. Addressing issues of food insecurity is an important application of this mission.”