On a hot Saturday morning, Abu Ahmed is standing on his date plantation in the Jordan Valley. 5000 palm trees belong to his farm, lined up at regular intervals like soldiers. "All the palms are healthy, everything is good," says Abu Ahmed, smiling contentedly. He remembers a time when it was different. Back then, the red palm weevil had bored into the heart of his palms and destroyed them from the inside. When they discovered the pests, it was already too late. They cut down and burned one infested palm after the other.

Abu Ahmed lost five percent of his plantation to the palm weevil, and with it five percent of his harvest. He had put six years of work or more into each palm tree until they finally bore fruit. Their market value at that time had reached around 1000 US dollars each, a total of a quarter of a million. The worst part for the farm manager, however, was not the economic loss, but the emotional one. Abu Ahmed says: "When a date palm dies, it feels like losing your little child. You have raised it, nurtured it, fed it."

Around 50 million farmers worldwide are struggling with the pest. Rhynchophorus ferrugineus is originally from Asia. In recent decades, it has spread rapidly. In the mid-1980s, date farmers in the United Arab Emirates reported the pest for the first time. From there, it made its way further and further west. The pest has long since developed into a global problem: The red palm weevil destroys coconut palms in its area of origin, date plantations in the Middle East and ornamental palms in southern Europe. Experts like the entomologist Hamadttu El-Shafie from King Faisal University in Saudi Arabia warn that the red palm weevil will infest other regions in the next few years, for example East Africa and the Caucasus. If you research the topic, you will find scientific publications with apocalyptic titles like "Palmageddon". Climate change is fuelling the invasion. The warmer it gets, the faster the beetle can multiply.

In the Mediterranean region alone, the pest has already caused damage amounting to around half a billion euros. In the Middle East, the beetle threatens the existence of date farmers. Hundreds of jobs depend on their harvest, and ultimately also food security in water-scarce countries like Jordan. The problem: in 80 percent of cases, the palm weevil is only discovered when it is already too late. Then the farmers have no choice but to cut down the palm tree and destroy it together with the pest, as Abu Ahmed had to do so often. The fact that he can now keep the pest away from his palms is due to an app that can detect the pest early - with the help of artificial intelligence and sound recordings from inside the trees.

Zeid Sinokrot, 37, invented the app. Earlier this morning, he left the capital Amman behind to visit Abu Ahmed - one of his first customers. In front of his windscreen, the Jordan Valley now spreads out like an oasis. Around 70 per cent of Jordan's date palms are nestled in the valley. "The Jordan Valley is considered the breadbasket and vegetable garden of the region," says Sinokrot, pointing to the lemon trees, greenhouses and wheat fields along the roadside. "However, water scarcity is causing more and more problems for the farmers." And then there is the palm plague.

Read more: The feature has been published in July 2023 on the science-news page Spektrum.de. Click here to read the full version in German.

Pictures: John Goodwin