### id253461192 foragers are less vulnerable to locusts than agriculturalists > **Foragers (i.e., hunter-gatherers) are less vulnerable to locusts than farmers and herders.** Why? We can begin with the damage caused by locusts. Locust swarms eat a *lot*, but they have food preferences. Their most-commonly favoured food is grass - locust can deprive herders of grazing for their herds, and can easily devastate cereal crops. Depending on the timing (i.e., when during the life cycles of the plants they are attacked by locusts), the damage can vary from killing the crop, damaging the crop enough to reduce yields, and negligible (e.g, if the seed heads are mature, in which case locusts might eat all the of the leaves, but the seed heads are left and are harvestable). Farmers who depend on cereals typically obtain the majority of their calories from their cereal crops, and locust damage can result in serious famine (especially since locusts will also eat other crops, and also some wild plants used as "famine food"). The second preference of food for locusts, after grasses, is your and tender leaves - this include almost all annual plants grown as crops in their early stages of growth. Similarly to cereals, the yields of some crops will be little affected by locusts. For example, legumes with dried or drying mature pods will usually still be harvestable, tubers and other root crops can remain unharmed underground even if the above-ground part of the plant is completely eaten, plants such as bitter cassava avoid locust attack due to the toxicity of their leaves, etc. - [[how hunter-gatherer communities deal with locusts#id253461192 foragers are less vulnerable to locusts than agriculturalists|View in Vault]]