Drones to disc jockeys: India battles locusts
NEW DELHI: From deploying drones and fire trucks to banging utensils and blaring loud music, India is experimenting with ways to battle a new wave of locust attacks that have alarmed farmers. Millions of locusts have engulfed India’s seven heartland states, including the western desert of Rajasthan, and threaten vegetable and pulse crops such as lentils and beans. “We have never ever seen what we have in the last six months in India ... never in the history,” said Bhagirath Choudhary, director of the New Delhibased South Asia Biotechnology Centre, an agriculture think-tank. Farmers salvaged their wheat and oilseed crops from a previous locust scourge that started late last year.
But the fresh swarms have arrived at a time when the government is trying to contain the spread of the coronavirus and reeling from economic fallout associated with pandemic restrictions. India’s lockdown introduced in late March - has pushed millions into hunger and poverty as they lose their livelihoods and left farmers unable to harvest, bag and move their crops because of labor shortages and logistical challenges. The country is battling its worst desert locust outbreak in decades with swarms radiating through much of the western states of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra, the central states of Madhya Pradesh and Punjab, and Haryana and Uttar Pradesh in the north. States in India’s east and south have been on alert too.
The last major locust surge was in 1993, when heavy rains created favorable breeding conditions for the insects along the India-Pakistan border. Most years the winged invaders destroy crops in parts of Rajasthan close to the border but farm experts say it is rare for them to move further into the state and other non-desert areas of India. Their wider distribution this year has bewildered residents and farmers, who have resorted to rudimentary efforts to scare the pests away. Some have mounted their tractors with insecticide sprayers or banged steel pots and plates, while others have lit fireworks or played loud music on speakers in the middle of their fields. A farmer in Uttar Pradesh rolled out a mobile disc jockey system, normally used at weddings.
‘Farmers crying’
Locust swarms can fly up to 150 km a day, and the adult insects can consume roughly their own weight in fresh food each day. A small swarm can eat enough food to feed 35,000 people in one day, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). “Farmers are crying, they don’t know what to do ... it’s like a natural disaster,” Choudhary told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. India’s state-run Locust Warning Organization, which is responsible for locust survey and control operations, did not respond to requests for comment.