The National Locust Control Centre (NLCC) warned on Monday the risk of locust attack persisted from India and Africa which could damage food crops amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Providing the latest situation in a daily update, NLCC said, the risk of the attack has been reduced from 61 district to only two as a result of timely operations by government and Pakistan Army. The national centre had mentioned the infestation has been limited to Tharparkar and Bahawalpur.
According to the update, the NLCC continued operation in Nagarparkar and the areas close to the Indian border in the southeast of Sindh, while a low number of adult hoppers were present in Cholistan and Lasbella
During the last 24 hours, the centre conducted survey of 206,200 hectares of land and carried out controlled operation on 791 hectares of land in the affected areas of Tharparkar. The swarms have been eradicated from 1,105,400 hectares of land across the country in the last six months.
Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research Syed Fakhar Imam had chaired a meeting of NLCC on Saturday to review the situation of locust attack across the country. The meeting emphasised appropriate measures to deal with probable danger of locust travelling from Africa and India to the country.
Earlier, chief executive officer of Guard Agriculture Research and Services Private Limited had remarked locust ‘a bigger threat than Covid-19 for Pakistan’ and urged the authorities to take it seriously.
He maintained coronavirus could be avoided by maintaining social distance and following standard operating procedures (SOPs), but there was no escape from the financial crisis and hunger caused by locust attacks.
Pakistan is expecting the third locust attack in southern Punjab during the monsoon season. The country has suffered two attacks of the swarms in a year and so far the insect has destroyed crops over millions of acres. According to farmers, wheat, pulses, oilseed, fodder, vegetable and mango crops have been damaged by the locust.
The government departments concerned maintained they along with Provincial Disaster Management Authorities were tackling the issue on a war footings and funds have been earmarked in the FY21 budget for complete elimination of locusts and supporting agriculture sector.
As per budget numbers, the federal government has allocated Rs10 billion for agriculture, the Punjab government has earmarked Rs31.73 billion and Sindh has set aside Rs14.8 billion.
However, for the agriculture sector stakeholders, these numbers were not impressive. They argued the funds were insufficient which would not help resolve the structural issues and promote research for value addition in exportable commodities. These would not support the country in purchasing modern equipment for the agriculture sector, which contributed around 20 per cent to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and employed more than 50 per cent of the workforce.
Being a periodical phenomenon, locust attack happens in decades and Pakistan has recently witnessed it after 27 years since the last attack in 1992.
In March 2019, locust swarms migrated from Iran to Balochistan. Despite control efforts in the province by the Department of Plant Protection (DPP), the swarms started moving towards the summer-monsoon breeding zone of Sindh and Punjab in June 2019.
After summer breeding in Thar, Nara and Cholistan deserts of Sindh and Punjab, the locusts migrated to the Indian Rajasthan desert in July 2019 and re-entered Tharparkar in Sindh between October and November 2019.
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