From October 2003 to May 2005, West Africa faced the largest desert locust outbreak in 15 years. The upsurge started as small independent outbreaks that developed in Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Sudan in the autumn of 2003. Two days of unusually heavy rains that stretched from Dakar, Senegal to Morocco in October allowed breeding conditions to remain favourable for the next six months and the desert locusts rapidly increased. Lack of rain and cold temperatures in the winter breeding area of northwest Africa in early 2005 slowed the development of the locusts and allowed the locust control agencies to stop the cycle. During the upsurge, nearly 130,000 km² were treated by ground and aerial operations in more than 20 countries. The costs of fighting this upsurge have been estimated by the FAO to have exceeded US$400 million, and harvest losses were valued at up to US$2.5 billion, which had disastrous effects on the food security situation in West Africa.

The countries affected by the 2004 outbreak were Algeria, Burkina Faso, the Canary Islands, Cape Verde, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, the Gambia, Greece, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sudan, Syria and Tunisia. Owing to the destructive habits of locusts, they have been a representation of famine in many Middle Eastern cultures. This theme commonly occurs, such as in the movies The Mummy and The Bible. In the pre-oil era of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, locusts were considered as a food delicacy.