Swarms of locusts enter Jaipur, FAO warns of more attacks till early July

Pests engulf 18 districts in state, apart from infesting large parts of UP and MP; Young juveniles will become voracious adults in June just as farmers begin to harvest, warns FAO

Swarms of locusts entered Rajasthan’s capital Jaipur on Monday as the pests spread to wider parts of Rajasthan along with Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana.

In Rajasthan, the menace has now engulfed 18 districts, while in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, the locust spread has widened even as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned of several attacks at least until early July.

FAO in its latest report said that as vegetation dries out, more swarms will move to their summer breeding areas along both sides of the Indo-Pakistan border in the form of several waves from now until at least early July. Locust attacks in 12 countries, including Pakistan, Iran and ten nations in Africa, have damaged crops over millions of hectares the past few months.

Countries in Africa and West Asia have been battling swarms of locusts since December. Sindh, Balochistan, and Punjab in Pakistan have been severely affected by the attacks.

“Despite control operations, recent heavy rains have created ideal conditions for the pest's reproduction in several countries. Young juveniles will become voracious adults in June just as farmers begin to harvest, compounding an already bleak food security situation," FAO warned in its Friday release.

This is the second locust attack in India during the past one year. The first happened between December to February, destroying crops in Rajasthan and Gujarat.

In Rajasthan, locusts normally affect districts in western Rajasthan but this time the swarms have travelled as far as Jaipur city. The swarms later headed towards Dausa district.

The swarms are travelling farther and damaging trees as there are no standing crops for them to feed on, an official said.

“There is no standing crop on the ground so they are staying on large trees and moving fast. Locust control teams conducted operations by sprinkling pesticide in Jaipur last night and today, the remaining swarms have moved towards Dausa,” a senior official said.

The Centre's Locust Warning Organisation in Jodhpur and the state agriculture department are working in coordination to handle the locust attack issue.

The latest such attack occurred on April 11 when the swarms entered from Pakistan and damaged cotton crops in Ganganagar to some extent.

The swarms later travelled to various other districts and have now crossed Jaipur.

Meanwhile, the Central government along with states is regularly monitoring the situation and has ordered a special spraying machine from England that can destroy the locusts through Arial spray.

The ministry of civil aviation has earlier a few days back permitted use of drones for locust control while the government has also exempted chemicals used for locust control from its draft list of chemicals that could be banned in India.