Rajasthan is the worst state affected by the locust attack.
New Delhi:
Massive swarms of locusts destroy crops in western and central India, now entering Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, after Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana, as the government announced that it had stepped up its response to the country’s worst locust attack in nearly three decades.
Locust containment and watering measures were carried out in 303 sites spread over more than 47,000 hectares until Wednesday in 20 districts of Rajasthan, nine in Madhya Pradesh, two in Gujarat and one in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, according to sources from the Ministry of Agriculture.
The government uses specialized spraying machines and has set up 11 control rooms to coordinate the response. Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar is monitoring the situation closely and has held three meetings with state agriculture ministers and representatives from pesticide companies, officials said. The government is also launching a tender for drones for the aerial spraying of insecticides.
The locust infestation in India this year is the worst in 26 years, an official said.
The pest, which threatens vegetable and legume crops, has not affected rabi (winter) produce in India, but government efforts are underway to eliminate insects before the monsoon to save kharif crops, said officials from the Locust Warning Organization (LWO). Wednesday.
After attacking crops in Madhya Pradesh, a swarm of locusts reached Jhansi district in Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday, said a government official. Other districts in the region are also on alert.
In Maharashtra, swarms of locusts that have entered Katol and Parseoni in Nagpur district in the past four days may move to the city of Ramtek although it is difficult to predict their exact flight path, said a senior official in the agriculture department.
Swarms up to 17 km long first entered farms at Fetri, Khangaon at Katol in Nagpur district and at Ashti taluka in Wardha district on Saturday evening and damaged them. orange and vegetable crops in some areas, before heading to Parseoni tehsil on Monday evening.
Punjab has also been placed on high alert for infestation and control rooms have been set up in each district and farmers have been asked to report locust activity, said Punjab director of agriculture , Agriculture Sawtantar Kumar Airi.
Swarms of locusts can travel 50 to 100 km per day, officials said.
Locusts belong to the grasshopper family and are generally harmless, but certain environmental conditions such as the monsoon and heavy cyclones make them more reproducible. The swarm is very mobile and covers 50 to more than 100 km per day.
“There is a continuous locust invasion from Pakistan. This is not a new problem and we have been dealing with it for a long time. This year, the locust attack has been worse for 26 years. However, a coordinated effort has been made to limit it, “a senior LWO official, headquartered in Faridabad, told PTI news agency.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the attack of locusts poses a threat to food security in affected countries, since an adult locust can eat an amount equal to its weight of about 2 grams per day.
A single square kilometer of the swarm can contain between 4 and 8 crores of adult locusts. Every day, if they cover 130 to 150 km, they can eat the food consumed by 35,000 people, the report said.
