Swarms of locusts land in Larkana after other districts of Sindh

LARKANA: Swarms of locusts have landed in Larkana after other districts of Sindh causing panic in farmers and other citizens, ARY News reported on Tuesday.

The swarms of  locusts (the crop eating insects) can be witnessed at houses, trees and fruit farms in various parts of the city and the outskirts.

The residents fearing damage to their crops and fruit farms are taking efforts on self help basis to get rid of the damaging swarms of the grasshopper.

“The locusts could damage standing crops of paddy and vegetables in the area,” people said.

They also demanded the government to conduct spray to get rid of the locusts.

Earlier, the swarms of locusts reported in Karachi, Sehwan and other cities and towns of Sindh.

The crop eating insects bring hunger with them by thoroughly eating cops and vegetation they find at any place.

Federal Plant Protection Department in a report said that November is the month of breeding for locusts adding that the swarms of the insect are moving from the desert areas of Sindh to Balochistan.

Sindh’s agriculture minister had recently asked the plant protection department for spray of insecticide in the areas infested by the locusts in the province.

In June this year, swarms of locusts attacked cotton fields in Khairpur, Sukkur, and Ghotki. Farmers had to bear losses of hundreds of thousands of rupees due to crop loss in the attack.

The crops were affected in Khairpur’s Naaro, Chondko, Thari Meerwah, Sukkur’s Saleh Pat, Thikrato, Mubarakpur and Ghotki’s Khanpur Mahar and Khangarh.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in first week of September had warned that the situation relating to locusts in Pakistan was “most serious” as a second generation of the insect had been bred.

According to the FAO’s Locust Watch report, there remains a risk of further breeding, causing locust numbers to increase, with the possibility of swarm formation from late September onward.

Yemen and India are also facing a similar situation, and the situation could deteriorate in Ethiopia and Eritrea, report said.