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Just add water: The garden insect that can turn into a plague - Jeffrey A. Lockwood

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TEDEd Animation

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A ravenous swarm stretches as far as the eye can see. It has no leader or strategic plan; its only goals are to eat, breed, and move on. These are desert locusts— infamous for their capacity for destruction. But most of the time desert locusts are no more dangerous than grasshoppers. So what does it take to turn these harmless insects into a crop-consuming plague? Jeffrey A. Lockwood investigates.

Planting a single kind of crop is called a “monoculture” and this agricultural strategy has been found to worsen pest outbreaks. Why would large-scale plantings of a uniform variety be more susceptible to insect pests—and why do you think that farmers use this approach if it makes for more pest problems?

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Meet The Creators

  • Educator Jeffrey A. Lockwood
  • Director Franz Palomares
  • Narrator Addison Anderson
  • Cabong Producer Felipe Grosso, Liana Vianna, Odirlei Seixas
  • Animator Elionai L. Ferreira, Fellipe Teixeira, Fernanda Lisboa Raad, Gildo Ananias, Hugo Junqueira, Rafael Almeida
  • Art Director Luísa Stadler
  • Background Artist Elionai L. Ferreira, Luísa Stadler
  • Composer Cem Misirlioglu
  • Director of Production Gerta Xhelo
  • Sound Designer Cem Misirlioglu
  • Editorial Director Alex Rosenthal
  • Producer Bethany Cutmore-Scott
  • Editorial Producer Dan Kwartler
  • Script Editor Alex Gendler
  • Content Associate Abdallah Ewis
  • Fact-Checker Eden Girma

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