More swarms expected in India; tech keeps locusts at bay

More crop-devastating locust swarms are expected to reach India from Somalia in the next few weeks, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has said in a fresh alert, after officials managed to tackle infestations in 3,83,631 hectare of farmland in 10 states in the first wave of attacks, keeping pest population below an economically devastating threshold thus far.

Locust numbers are said to cross the economic threshold level when their numbers cross 10,000 adults per hectare (one hectare equals 2.4 acre). Beyond this limit, the pest become economically ruinous and needs aggressive control.

“Using our indigenously developed technologies mounted on air force helicopters and continuous surveillance, we have been able to prevent hoppers (wingless baby locust nymphs) from reaching the immature stage of their life-cycle, which is when they are most devastating,” said KL Gurjar, deputy director of the Locust Warning Organisation, the federal agency under agriculture ministry which is responsible for anti-pest operations.

Gurjar said operations to kill nymphs so that they did not reach the crop-eating stage has proven successful in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Bihar. Uttarakhand and Bihar are latest states where locusts have appeared.

Adult locusts pose considerably less threat than immature ones, which need a lot of food, Gurjar said.

Desert locusts can fly hundreds of kilometres a day and one square-km swarm can eat as much crop food as 35,000 people in terms of weight in a single day, according to the FAO Desert Locust Information Service manual. If unchecked, locust infestations can cause a considerable drop in food output.

Two MI-17 helicopters of the air force are conducting operations at short notice after being re-purposed to fight the pest with an indigenously developed technology.

Air force pilots are using an in-house technology to spray atomised pesticides from the air, which has been able to track and kill large armies of locusts, Gurjar said.

In one of the largest containment exercises, in the intervening night of July 22-23, operations were carried out at 31 places in 9 districts, including Jaisalmer, Barmer, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Churu, Sikar, Nagaur, Pali and Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan and Kutch in Gujarat.

“The choppers were needed because they have better manoeuvrability and can target large trails of pests with a special form of the pesticide malathion, which has been indigenously developed,” a second official, requesting anonymity, said. A privately owned Bell helicopter has been deployed by Rajasthan government, apart from 15 drones.

The agriculture ministry signed a contract with the UK’s Micron Group to modify two Mi-17 helicopters for spraying atomized pesticides. But the UK-based firm’s supply has now been delayed until September, a second official said.

This prompted the air force to task its “no. 3 base repair depot” in Chandigarh to indigenously design an airborne locust control system for Mi-17 helicopters. “Atomized airborne spraying has been successfully achieved in air through a configuration of nozzles mounted on both sides on external trusses of Mi-17 helicopters,” the second official said.

The focus of the operation have been largely Rajasthan, a hotspot state where swarms of immature pink locusts and adult yellow locusts are active in Jaisalmer, Barmer, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Churu, Sikar, Nagaur, Jaipur, Pali, Hanumangarh, Sriganganagar and Dausa.

Dozens of countries, from Kenya to Pakistan, are battling the worst locust outbreak in generations. The migratory insects are setting off from the Horn of Africa, where they are breeding in “insurmountable” numbers due to frequent cyclones, according to the FAO.

These cyclones are possibly linked to climate change, according to the FAO. The organisation has already warned the invasions pose a “serious” risk to India’s agriculture.