According to primary reports, in the last couple of days, four to five villages in the Vidarbha region have come under attack from the locusts.
Mumbai| Eastern part of Maharashtra was invaded by the swarm of desert locusts where district and agriculture department personnel have begun chemical spraying on crops and vegetation to protect them from the migratory pests, officials informed on Monday.
According to primary reports, in the last couple of days, four to five villages in the Vidarbha region have come under attack from the locusts, known for feasting on all sorts of plants and standing crops.
Ravindra Bhosale, the Joint director of agriculture told news agency PTI, “The swarm of desert locusts entered the state from Amravati district. It then went to Wardha and now it is in Nagpur’s Katol tehsil.”
Central Integrated Pest Management Centre’s regional team has started spraying chemicals on crops and plants near the Jalalkheda bypass where the locusts have been spotted, he said.
“Central agencies in this field had alerted us about the locust attack and necessary information had been passed on to villagers as well,” Mr Bhoale informed.
“A swarm does not travel in the night. The migratory pests travel during the day time and fly as per the wind direction,” he added.
“Locusts are very dangerous to all types of vegetation. They feed on green leaves and known for devouring crops spread across on acres of land,” the officer said.
He also said that he himself was monitoring the spraying of chemicals as they would be spraying 1200 litres of water with insecticides.
Before this, the locusts’ attacks were reported from some areas of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi.
The desert locust is considered the most dangerous of all migratory pest species in the world, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), an agency of the United Nations.
Locusts threaten people’s livelihood, food security, economic and environmental development, the FAO had said.
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