COVER STORY/LOCUST

early arrival, locust attacks have become an unending ordeal for them. Last year's attack, considered a major locust invasion after almost a decade, had also begun way ahead of the season, in May 2019, and continued till February this year. Data with the ministry shows 11 districts in Rajasthan, two in Gujarat and one district in Punjab were exposed to locusts during the period. "Now, they are here again after a gap of just two months,” says Babulal Shaswat of Lalawali. On May 10, Shaswat and many other farmers in his village lost their third consecutive crop to locusts in less than a year. “In September last year, they devoured my standing cotton crop; in February this year (black gram) crop; and now, the American cotton,” says Shaswat. To recover the losses, several farmers in the village have taken loans and sowed cotton again. But it’s too hot for the seeds to germinate. Shaswat says he is in a fix. He plans to wait till the monsoon and then sow groundnut. But people say the locusts will come back during kharif. “I do not know how I will pull through. So far, I have accumulated a loan of `4.5 lakh and have neither paid my instalments nor the school fees for my children since last year. My family is surviving on the remittance sent by my brothers working in Bikaner,” says Shaswat, adding that

such an invasion had occured two to three decades ago. But this time the swarms are just too big and too aggressive.

They are also unusually pink. “Usually sexually mature, yellow-coloured locusts come first,” says B S Yadav, assistant director, agriculture department, Jaipur. They tend to stay on the ground and move less once they mate. It’s easier to spray on them and contain their spread. But this year, the presence of hoppers (freshly hatched locusts that are yet to develop wings) has been reported since April 11 and pink immature adults since April 30. These younger pests tend to settle on taller trees as compared to crops. They are like children full of energy and fly away as soon as you go near them, making it difficult to manage them, says Yadav, adding that it is unusual for the younger locusts to arrive at this time. Their behaviour has also changed because of the early arrival, says K L Gurjar, deputy director at LWO. During monsoon and winter nights, their wings get stuck due moisture or dew and they cannot fly until the sun is out. Since the weather is dry now, they are able to fly even at night, making control operations difficult.

With an ability to ditch control measures, fly high and cover long distances, these swarms are now moving beyond the scheduled desert areas, taking people by surprise and posing challenges for LWO that operates with a limited staff.

In Jaipur district, which reported massive locust attacks in the last week of May, Sachin Yogi, a 24-year-old wedding photographer, says, "I have only heard my grandfather talking about locusts." On May 26, some 30 LWO officers, armed with a drone and six ultra-low-volume sprayers, Ulvamast, chalked out a war plan of sorts along with 16 state government officials manning four fire tenders to destroy a 40 sq km swarm that had taken residence at Mahar kalan in Karanpur village. They were out on the roads all night, spraying solutions of highly toxic insecticides like chlorpyifos and lambda cyhalothrin on

1810: FLIGHTS OF LOCUSTS APPEARED IN THE BENGAL PROVINCE. ON ONE OCCASION THEY APPEARED AS FAR SOUTH AS BROACH BUT DISAPPEARED WITH THE BEGINNING OF THE MONSOON OF 1812

every tree, bush and other vegetation in the area. The drone was also employed to spray insecticides on the hillocks of the Aravallis that border the district on one side.

At the end of the operation, it was hard to tell if there was anything more than a few random locusts flying around. “The swarm, of 180 sq km in size, entered India on May 22. We destroyed a part of it at Nagaur district. The remaining came here,” said a LWO official. But as soon as sunlight hit the trees, thousands of locusts burst out of the canopies, blinded by chemical sprays yet eager to fly away.

In Uttar Pradesh, the district administration of Jhansi has carried out control operations thrice between May 22 and 27. “LWO officials have been staying in Jhansi since the district was attacked by a swarm,” says Kamal Katihar, deputy director of the district agriculture department. “While we use chlorpyrifos, they handle the highly poisonous Malathion96. Besides, we never had the need for the chemical as this is the first attack in Jhansi after 30 years,” says Katihar.

While in Uttar Pradesh locusts have invaded two districts, they have spread across 40 of the 52 districts in Madhya Pradesh just within a week after entering the state. In Hoshangabad district, deputy director of agriculture Jitendra Singh says, is close to harvest now. "So as soon as the locusts entered the district on May 23, we deployed four fire engines and sprayers mounted on tractors to spray lambda-cyhalothrin early in the morning. Crops in our district have been saved,” he adds. Though the agriculture department claims it has destroyed 40 per cent of the locust population, swarms were active in eight districts, including, Bhopal in the first week of June. Some have even crossed Madhya Pradesh to reach Koriya district of Chhattisgarh on May 31. As on June 7, locusts had spread to 44 districts in seven states; control works were done on 70,728 ha; and, nine states are on high alert for a possible attack. India had never faced a locust attack of such proportion.

STAYING ALERT is one way to gain the upper hand in a battle. But understanding the changing strategy of the enemy is equally crucial, particularly if it is a trans-boundary pest with an ability to travel 150 km a day riding the wind current. Worse, in India desert locusts appear to be expanding their territory both in terms of time and space—they are now coming early, staying longer and foraying deep into the country.

FAO says much of the country's current crisis was caused by the supercyclone Amphan that made landfall on the Sundarbans on May 20. Strong northwesterly winds (that enter from northwest and move towards southeast and east) were established in its aftermath, taking locusts into places as far as Chhattisgarh in the east and Maharashtra in south. An analysis of the wind data in six north Indian cities by the International Water Management Institute, headquartered at Colombo, also shows that there has been a sharp increase in the wind speed at 10 meters above the ground from midMay onward which has helped the locust move from Rajasthan to faraway places. As a result, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have reported sightings of locust swarms for the first time since 1962, Maharshtra since 1974 and Madhya Pradesh and Punjab since 1993. FAO predicts locusts could soon reach Odisha and Bihar. They too have not experienced locust attacks in recent decades.

However, wind is not the only factor responsible for this unusual spread. According to FAO, even before Amphan hit the country, dry conditions prevailing in the west forced immature adult swarms

1869: RAJASTHAN SUFFERED CONSIDERABLY FROM LOCUST ATTACKS. VAST SWARMS WERE ALSO OBSERVED BY SHIPS PASSING THROUGH THE RED SEA. OLD RECORDS FROM THE 19TH AND EARLY 20TH CENTURY SHOW THAT THERE HAVE BEEN LOCUST CYCLES SINCE 1869: 1869- 1881, 1889-1907, 1912-1919 AND 1926-1931

to move eastward, who reached Ajmer by mid-May and Indore in Madhya Pradesh on May 21. "This is because locusts have a strong liking for tender leaves and possess a strong sense of smell for fresh vegetation," says Biswajeet Paul, principal scientist at Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, who works on biologiocal control of insects. Since vegetation in their usual territory in northwestern states is not lush green, the swarms are moving towards states like Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra where cyclones and heavy unseasonal rainfalls, induced by western disturbance between March and May, have initiated vegetation growth. Paul says locust swarms are just taking the help of wind currents to move in the direction of food so that they use less energy.

For an insect as big as a paper clip and that travels across continents for survival, energy is a big asset which it must save for breeding. And there are only a few weeks left for it. It is estimated that by the end of June, most swarms in the country would attain maturity. They would turn yellow and settle down for breeding. That would also be the time, when monsoon rains would sweep across northern and central India and kharif crop cycle would begin, making ample food available for them. While locusts only nibble away the leaves of mature trees, they can gobble up entire saplings in a single morning, leaving no trace of vegetation. If the infestation is not controlled now, their next generation would threaten the country's food security that largely depends on kharif crops such as rice, maize and sorghum.