The Locust Attack (must known facts)

Locust belongs to the grasshopper, cricket insect family, they are similar to each other.
Locust belongs to the desert region, they are not as cricket & grasshoppers as they exist in the two phases.

1. Solitary phase.

The phase when they remain single.

2. Gregarious phase.

In this phase in which they live in the crowd & increases in their size & shape. They get harmful, they rapidly move, increase in their eating habits & destroys the vegetation.





Locusts are a collection of certain species of short-horned grasshoppers in the family Acrididae that have a swarming phase. 
Desert Locust plagues occurred in 1926-1934, 1940-1948, 1949-1963, 1967-1969 & 1986-1989.
 A Desert Locust lives a total of about three to five months although this is extremely variable and depends mostly on weather and ecological conditions.

• Since December Locust swarms have been destroying crops all over East Africa and now they have reached Pakistan and India. Locusts are insects that belong to the same family as crickets and grasshoppers.
• They grow in isolation (solitary phase) but lack of rain can push individual locusts to grow. And in high densities, they undergo a phase change to the gregarious phase.
• This changes their habits, behavior, appearance and causes swarms to build up, which destroys agriculture crops across the world.

• The locusts have the existence in the desert regions, & from the deserts of the African continents, they travel from Yemen, Iraq, & Pakistan to the deserts of India.

With India battling the worst desert locust outbreak in three decades, the crop-destroying insects have now spread to Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh after arriving in Rajasthan. Swarms are less likely to reach south India.

 - Certain Facts about Locusts.

• A desert locust swarm can be 460 square miles in size and pack between 40 and 80 million locusts into less than half a square mile. 
• Each locust can eat its weight in plants each day, so a swarm of such size would eat 423 million pounds of plants every day.

• Adults often group together into swarms containing thousands of locusts. Adult locusts typically live about 10 weeks.
• Locust swarms fly with the wind at roughly the speed of the wind. They can cover from 100 to 200 kilometers in a day, and will fly up to about 2,000 meters above sea level (it becomes too cold at higher altitudes).

 *Attacks of the locusts in the Indian State

Uttar Pradesh

• Taking cognizance of the matter, chief minister Yogi Adityanath had on Wednesday issued directions to district magistrates of Jhansi, Lalitpur, Agra, Mathura, Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Mahoba, Banda, Chitrakoot, Jalaun, Etawah and Kanpur Dehat.
• At the state-level, teams have already been formed and control rooms established to track the movement of locusts. At the district headquarter level, a nodal officer has been appointed, and a task force and control room already set up.
• Officials have been instructed to list elaborate details of the danger posed by locusts and precautions that need to be taken, and sharing them through social media, and making them available to farmers and locals.
• Overnight operations were carried out by the authorities to clear swarms of locusts in Moth and Garautha areas of Jhansi, and in Sonbhadra district.
• An advisory was also issued to beat drums, tin containers, metal plates and create noise to shoo the locusts in case of an attack. Officials of the Agriculture Department have been told to coordinate with members of the locust warning team, locals and farmers.

Madhya Pradesh

• Swarms of locusts crossed into the Balaghat district of Madhya Pradesh from eastern Maharashtra on Thursday afternoon.
• The swarms then crossed the Bavanthadi river and reached the Balaghat district.

Punjab

• Punjab has been put on alert after swarms of locusts attacked crops in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.
• Farmers have been asked to keep an eye out for any locust activity.
• Control rooms have been set up in each district and farmers have been asked to report any activity of locusts, he said.
• The state government has sanctioned a sum of Rs 1 crore for containing locust attacks.
• A detailed action plan to check the invasion of locust swarms has been prepared by the state agriculture department.
• As part of the plan, agriculture officers have been asked to maintain strict vigil in their respective areas. Surveys will be conducted, especially in areas bordering Pakistan and Rajasthan.
• Notably, locusts were spotted in some villages of Punjab's Fazilka and Muktsar districts in January this year but they were effectively contained.

Maharashtra

• Around 50 percent of locust swarms were killed in the state by the agriculture department.
• Meanwhile, local administration in Bhandara sprayed disinfectant to fight locust attack and locals beat drums to drive away the insects.
• DB Undirwade, head of the department of entomology of Panjabrao Deshmukh Agricultural University in Akola, said he was seeing locust swarms in the state for the first time in the last 20 years.
• The state agriculture department on Thursday claimed that 66,000 farmers were alerted and asked to report if they saw a locust attack.

Telangana

• Authorities in Telangana on Thursday sounded an alert in the districts bordering Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh to prevent the entry of locust swarms into the state.
• Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao directed the officials to take all the precautions to avert entry of locust swarms as he reviewed the situation at a meeting with ministers and senior officials here.
• The government said all the District Collectors, and police officials on the borders with Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh were alerted, and fire engines, jetting machines, and pesticides were put in place.
• It also constituted a five-member committee to keep a tab on the movement of locust swarms and to monitor measures to prevent them from entering the state.
• Officials were asked to keep 15,000 liters of pesticides like Malathion, Chlorpyrifos, Lambda Cyhalothrin ready on the Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh borders. They were also directed to keep 12 fire engines, and 12 jetting machines ready.

Rajasthan

• The swarms entered Rajasthan last month from Pakistan and then spread to areas across the western states, helped by strong winds.
• About 90,000 hectares in 20 Rajasthan districts are affected by the locust attack
• Swarms moved from Sri Ganganagar, Nagaur, Jaipur, Dausa, Karauli, and Swai Madhopur districts towards Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, the official said.
• The state administration carried out locust control operations over 67,000 hectares in Rajasthan.

Delhi

• The Delhi government has asked authorities concerned to spray insecticides and pesticides on crops and vegetation to prevent a probable desert locust attack, with city Development Minister Gopal Rai saying an awareness campaign would be run over the issue.
• Rai, in a tweet on Thursday, said the government has also issued an advisory informing people about insecticides and pesticides which can be sprayed on standing crops, vegetation, gardens, and orchards to guard them from locusts.
• The authorities have been asked to carry out spraying of pesticides chlorpyrifos and malathion.
• Also, Delhi's forest department is considering covering the saplings in its nurseries with polythene to protect them against the desert locust attack.

*Technique to stop the locust outbreak in INDIA. (Pakistani technique)

With the locust problem escalating, an innovative pilot project in Pakistan’s Okara district offers a sustainable solution in which farmers earn money by trapping locusts that are turned into high-protein chicken feed by animal feed mills.

It was the brainchild of Muhammad Khurshid, a civil servant in the Ministry of National Food Security and Research, and Johar Ali, a biotechnologist from the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council. “We were mocked for doing this – no one thought that people could actually catch locusts and sell them,” said Ali. $$$$引引引引引Ҝ
To catch the locust at night, & turning in into a high protein chicken feed.