Pakistan struggling with COVID-19, locust swarm challenges

By Masood Sattar Khan
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

Presently the infected patients of life threatening COVID-19 figure has crossed forty thousand all over the country and the death toll spiking every passing day at the same time, the country is also faced with locust swarm attack that can threaten food security. 

The country's main food-producing pockets have been haunted by a plague of locust swarms which are sweeping green fields with their devastating instinct heavily. 

The locusts has imposed a loss of 15 percent to the winter-sown crops last year amounting to at least 100 billion rupees (around 625.7 million US dollars), with fears that the damage would be huge if the next generation hatched, the Chinese news agency Xinhua said quoting Food Security Ministry. 

It may be recalled that the Chinese government is helping Pakistan both in terms for provision of medicines, equipments as well as experts to cope with the situation. 

In a recent report, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has warned of a huge level locust invasion in Pakistan if it is not controlled efficiently because locust breeding is taking place at 38 percent of the country's total area supported by suitable weather. 

The report added that the locust attacks could cause 817 billion rupees (around 5.1 billion US dollars) loss to Pakistan's agriculture production in 2020, which would turn obnoxious to its fragile economy.

Earlier in January, the Pakistani government imposed a national emergency on locust control. Many small farmers in district Chakwal were spraying their fields helplessly with manual backpack sprayer machine, trying to kill locusts which had damaged over 20 percent of green gram crop in one-night posing a big issue to his income. 

A 21-year-old young farmer told Xinhua that the locust swarm triggered panic among villagers as their crop was fine the previous evening but a lot of leaves had been eaten up a day later. 

They feared that if the situation prevails it would finish all cash crops, animals' fodders and fruits like it did with wheat crop in southern Sindh province.

"Last night, we sprayed and it had little result, then we repeated in the morning and it is a little effective. We are spraying but they keep moving here and there to eat and remain in the same area," the young farmer, requesting the local agriculture department to arrange an extensive spray to control the insect which has been playing havoc with crops across Pakistan since last year, remarked. 

The desert locust plague affected Pakistan's southern Sindh province last year before moving to the rest parts of the country. The Ministry of National Food Security and Plant Protection and other departments all came up with a response to the fly attacks. 

The Assistant Director of Agriculture Pest Warning in Chakwal, Muhammad Riaz, told Xinhua that the swarm scattered in two groups had affected around 400 acres crops in less than 48 hours, posing a big threat to crops in the area. 

"It is a prominent threat and it has spread like a virus because it has already reached to 15 districts in Punjab province. Another dangerous thing is that now the temperature is increasing and their eggs will be hatched and their population will increase manifolds," the official said. 

To cope with the threatening situation, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has planned to spray 500,000 hector of land.