Combating locusts

Fifty-three districts of the country are under locust attack: 28 in Balochistan, 11 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 12 in Punjab and two in Sindh, according to the National Disaster Management Agency. Locust control measures are in full swing in all the affected districts. Surveys are being undertaken and agricultural fields being sprayed with pesticides. Aerial spray is also being done wherever required. So far thousands of acres have been surveyed and treated in the four provinces. The situation is well under control giving a lie to claims that the situation arising out of the locust attack has been deteriorating because of a willful delay on the part of the federal government. The NDMA says timely action is being taken against locusts especially in view of the fact that in the rainy season these hoppers had the tendency to multiply.

Locust attack in Pakistan was first reported in November last year. Politicians talked about it without mentioning the steps being taken against the locusts, leaving people to conjecture as to the real situation. Now the NDMA, though somewhat belatedly, has made the whole situation clear as to the offending creatures. It says the government had sought assistance from the World Food and Agriculture Organisation and they are providing pesticides, equipment and other help in the fight against the locust swarms.

Swarms of locusts made their way into Pakistan after harming crops in East Africa and Iran. An appeal from the FAO in January netted $130 million from the international community. The FAO, with the financial assistance from the international community and its own technical capabilities, helped the affected countries successfully combat locust swarms. More than 720,000 tonnes of food, enough to feed five million people, were saved. Locust swarms, like the coronavirus, know no boundaries. They travel very fast. In 1988, swarms of locusts flew 31,000 miles from West Africa to the Caribbean in just 10 days.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 21^st, 2020.

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