Dear Swapnaja,

From the Biblical plagues of Egypt to a major infestation in Madacasgar two years ago, locust swarms have caused chaos throughout history. Just one swarm can cover 20% of the land surface of the Earth, affecting the livelihood of 10% of the world’s population by consuming up to 200 tonnes of vegetation per day.

The World Bank Group has approved a US$ 500 million program to provide flexible support to countries in Africa and the Middle East affected by the locust outbreak.

Locust swarms move quickly and are unpredictable in their movements. This makes it challenging to contain their growth and spread. Safe and effective use of pesticides, including biopesticides, through aerial and ground spraying, is necessary to reduce their propagation and prevent their spread to new areas. The World Bank is coordinating closely with the FAO, which is the leading technical agency globally on desert locust control, other partner organizations, and countries to develop integrated pest management plans and to support countries to undertake safe and effective control operations.

In India - The union government is coordinating with state governments to restrict locust attacks. by using pesticide spray, survey vehicles, control vehicles with spray equipment, tractors mounted sprayers have been deployed for effective locust control, as per requirement during different days.

One of the ideas might be using low-flying planes to create atmospheric disturbance to disrupt locusts.

Cheers

Ankur

Ankur Srivastava Thank you for your answer providing a brief about locust swarms and solutions applied worldwide. Also for preventive control, life cycle of locust and prediction about its favorable climate conditions will help a lot to control it at its early stage.

When swarms of locusts pour onto the crops of agricultural crops, it is most effective to use aviation to cultivate these territories.Wwe carry it out together with acaricidal treatment. In the autumn, where locusts stopped, digging up the fields to reduce the number of locust egg capsules. Regsrds, Sergey Viktorovich Pushkin

Sergey Viktorovich Pushkin Thank you for your input. This specific solution of destroying eggs seems effective and can prevent the locust multiplication by 30 to 60 times, because one female locust lays 1 to 2 egg pods and one egg pod contains 30 eggs on average.