After COVID-19, Cyclone Amphan, India Faces Another Disaster - Locusts In UP, MP And Rajasthan

2020 is turning out to be one of the worst years that we have come across in a long time. Less than six months into 2020 we have been hit by locust swarms, a pandemic and a super cyclone.

And parts of India are going to be hit by another swarm of locusts in the coming days. States like Rajasthan and Gujarat were already hit by a swarm of locusts earlier this year.

AP

Now the states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh are being attacked by the locusts which bred and matured in Iran and Pakistan¡¯s Balochistan and have already reached Rajasthan. Gujarat and Punjab have also warned the farmers of locust attacks.

On May 20, swarms of locusts were spotted in Dausa district of Rajasthan. In five days, they had covered a distance of around 200km to reach Dausa from Ajmer. Now, the pests have entered UP. In Rajasthan, 16 districts are affected, in UP 17 and Madhya Pradesh has reported one of the worst attacks in 27 years.

BCCL

In Uttar Pradesh, locusts are feared to affect 17 districts ¡ª Agra, Aligarh, Mathura, Bulandshahr, Hathras, Etah, Firozabad, Mainpuri, Etawah, Farrukhabad, Auraiya, Jalaun, Kanpur, Jhansi, Mahoba, Hamirpur and Lalitpur.

The Jhansi district administration in Uttar Pradesh has directed fire brigade to keep its vehicle ready with chemicals following a sudden movement by a swarm of locusts. Deputy Director Agriculture Kamal Katiyar said the swarm of locusts, which is moving, is small in size.

BCCL

"We have got news that nearly 2.5 to 3-kilometre long swarm of locusts has entered the country. A team has come from Kota (Rajasthan) to tackle the locusts."

In Madhya Pradesh locust swarms have wreaked havoc in at least 12 districts, destroying standing crops in the largest such attack in a decade.

The swarms first entered Mandsaur and Neemuch on May 17 and then swept into 10 more districts. Mandsaur, Neemuch, Ratlam, Ujjain, Dewas, Shajapur Indore, Khargone, Morena and Sheopur have been the worst-hit.

BCCL

The swarms could make headway to the Rajasthan-Haryana border and then enter to Delhi. Four teams of the central government and teams of state agricultural development are using chemical sprays with the help of tractors and fire-brigade vehicles to keep the locusts at bay.

Though locust swarms are not anything new in the regions, in recent times they are becoming more frequent. Locusts can destroy standing crops and devastate livelihoods of people in the agricultural supply chain. Locust attacks could pose a threat to food security, the Food and Agricultural Organization has warned.

BCCL

According to FAO, a one square kilometre swarm of locusts, with about 40 million locusts, can in a day eat as much food as 35,000 people, assuming that each individual consumes 2.3 kg of food per day.