The invasion of farmland prompted fears of food shortages, as it takes only a few hours for a swarm of locusts to wipe out a field of crops. But in Antananarivo, its residents’ health that is at risk, as some catch the low-flying bugs in plastic water bottles to eat, which is dangerous because many are now contaminated by pesticides. “We always advise the population to not eat the locusts because we are already using pesticides to treat them,” Patrice Talla Takoukam, a spokesman for the FAO in Madagascar, told Agence France-Presse in a televised interview. For now, whether residents are running to catch them or running to avoid them, the locusts are only multiplying. And the problem will take some serious funding, another $15 million or so beyond the U.N. plan, to get under the infestation fully under control. “We need to put our heads together and mobilize our resources,” Takoukam said. “If we don’t…. Then our risk is that we’ll continue to have invasions like we have in the past two years.” –