LOCUSTS TURN GREEN TREES BROWN
LUCKNOW/AGRA/KANPUR:Swarms of desert locusts have already attacked crops in Jhansi and Lalitpur districts of Bundelkhand and there are indications that they may attack around 20 districts in UP.
However, Agra farmers got a reprieve on Wednesday when a swarm of locusts, reaching till Jagner, changed its direction with the wind and moved towards Madhya Pradesh via Raja Kheda area on the state border.
An alert, meanwhile, continues with another swarm hovering over Dausa in Rajasthan, about 140 kilometres from Agra.
“This swarm of locusts had entered Agra boundaries on Tuesday, hovering above Jagner and Tantpur areas, only 30 km from the city. We were prepared for their attack but on Wednesday, it moved with wind direction towards Madhya Pradesh through Raja Kheda,” said Ram Pravesh, district plant protection officer (DPPO).
Various districts of western Uttar Pradesh are on the radar and apart from Agra, Aligarh is also on alert.
Principal secretary, agriculture, Devesh Chaturvedi said desert locusts had come as a new challenge affecting districts like Jhansi and Lalitpur while they might reach some more districts in a day or two. He claimed that the government was doing everything possible to deal with the menace. “State as well as Central teams are spraying pesticides between 12 am to 6 am in the affected villages when the locusts are resting while the monitoring committees made for Covid-19 are advising villagers to beat utensils and play loud music in the day time to drive the locusts away,” he explained.
Beating utensils and playing music, according to Chaturvedi, helped to a large extent in driving away the locusts.
“We are told that the locusts have attacked UP at this scale after 25-30 years,” Chaturvedi said, adding “However, the good thing is that presently there are no major crops standing in the fields and the locusts are largely harming vegetables.”
The locust is one of the 12 species of short horned grasshoppers and its swarm can travel from sunrise to sunset, covering a distance of up to 130 kilometres in a day. They stop travelling by evening. A locust could eat about two grams of fresh vegetation each day, said a former agro scientist of the CSA (Kanpur) professor CS Pathak.
Kanpur too is expected to be attacked by the locusts very soon, though rain may halt their march.
According to the district agriculture security officer, Kanpur, Ashish Kumar Singh , ordinarily locusts attacked in June but this year they had come before time, perhaps due to dry weather.
“The swarms of locusts have separated in four groups and in one km area there are over one croreof locusts, which has caused alarm,” he said.
The first group of locusts is heading towards Chhatarpur in MP via Jhansi. This group is expected to enter Mahoba and may proceed to Allahabad through Fatehpur and Kaushambhi. The second swarm is near Babina. This is expected to reach Ghatampur in Kanpur via Jhansi, Jalaun and Hamirpur.
The third was heading to Agra but at Jagner it veered towards Madhya Pradesh.
About one kilometre long, the fourth swarm of locusts was heading towards Sabalgarh from Vijaypur in Madhya Pradesh and it was fast moving in this direction, Singh added.
Singh said that the direction of the wind and the weather conditions would decide the course of locusts’ movement. If it rained, the locust would not be able to continue their journey, he added. Vice chancellor of CSA University Professor DR Singh said that scientists at the Krishi Vigyan Kendras were making every effort to train the farmers for saving the crop.
Former director of Lucknow’s Giri Institute of Developmental Studies AK Singh said the desert locust attack was a natural disaster which could not be controlled easily. “The government must arrange aerial spray of pesticides. This can cover larger areas within less time,” he suggested.
› Three locusts’ swarm landings have taken place in Jhansi district. In Bharua Sagar, the locust damaged crops in 14 hectares land that affected 67 farmers, who have been compensated. Half of the locusts were culled and rest migrated towards MP. ANDHRA VAMSI, DM, Jhansi