Billions of Locusts Still Infest Madagascar, Food Security of 13 Million People Threatened [VIDEO]

An out-of-control locust plague in Madagascar is eating its way through cropland, putting the food security and livelihood of some 13 million people in jeopardy, according to a report from the United Nation's food agency.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has been sounding the alarm about locusts in Madagascar for nearly a year and their renewed call this week came with a stark warning: by September, two-thirds of the country will be infested with locusts.

To that effect, the FAO is seeking humanitarian donations to help finance an eradication of the locust plague. A large-scale locust control campaign urgently requires $22 million in funding to get underway by the next crop planting season in September, the FAO reported.

"If we don't act now, the plague could last years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars," FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said in a statement. "This could very well be a last window of opportunity to avert an extended crisis," he said.

The locust plague is the worst Madagascar has seen in six decades, according to the Rome-based FAO, which added that over the next three years a total of $41.5 million will be needed to battle the locust plague into recession.

FAO estimates suggests that up to 630,000 metric tons of rice, the main staple food in Madagascar, could be lost to the locusts, an amount equal to a quarter of the total rice demand in the island nation.

Experts suggests that as many as 100 individual locust swarms, totaling about 500 billion of the ravenous insects, are eating their way across Madagascar at the pace of about 100,000 metric tons of vegetation each day, the AFP reported.

"Some 13 million people's food security and livelihoods are at stake, or nearly 60 percent of the island's total population. Nine million of those people are directly dependent on agriculture for food and income," the FAO reported.