Locust swarms invade Bahawalpur, Muzaffargarh
Huge swarms of locusts invaded Bahawalpur, Muzaffargarh and Liquatpur on Tuesday.
BAHAWALPUR (Dunya News) – Huge swarms of locusts invaded Bahawalpur, Muzaffargarh and Liquatpur on Tuesday, causing great damage to standing crops in these areas, Dunya News reported.
The farmers feared a drought-like situation if proper attention was not paid to it as the locust would devour all greenery in the area, which depends on farming.
Pakistan’s farmers are struggling to combat the worst locust plague in nearly three decades as insect swarms decimate entire harvests in the country’s agricultural heartlands and send food prices soaring.
Heavy rains and cyclones sparked "unprecedented" breeding and the explosive growth of locust populations on the Arabian peninsula early last year, according to the United Nations.
The insects have since fanned out and wreaked havoc on farms from East Africa to India before making their way into Pakistan from the desert on the country’s southwestern border with Iran.
The crisis is so severe that the government has declared a nationwide emergency and urgently appealed for help from the international community.
Officials in southern Sindh province fear the infestation will devastate the supply of cotton, the local cash crop, ahead of its harvest in the coming months.
Local surveys of the damage are continuing, but the Sindh Chamber of Agriculture says nearly half of all crops have been destroyed near the port city of Karachi.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Imran Khan while shedding light on the importance of regular contact and coordination between the federal and provincial governments to cope with the prevailing challenge of locusts attack and said the government was determined to provide all possible resources to get rid of this menace.
Chairing a high-level meeting to review measures for saving the crops from locusts attack last month, he said the federal government was aware of the issue and dealing with the threat through all possible means.
The meeting was attended by Minister for National Food Security Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar, Finance Advisor Dr Abdul Hafiz Shaikh, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) chairman and high officials. In addition, the chief ministers of the four provinces also participated in the meeting through video-link.
The National Food Security secretary briefed the prime minister about the various steps taken regarding the elimination of locusts.
The meeting was told that various inter-departmental and inter-provincial coordination, surveillance, control and awareness committees had been constituted under the national action plan for the elimination of locusts.
The meeting was informed that besides those steps, apex committees had been constituted, control room in NDMA had also been set up while teams at district level had also been constituted to deal with the threat.
The National Food Security secretary informed the meeting about the ongoing cooperation with Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and China in that regard.
The finance secretary told the meeting that required funds had been provided to the NDMA to take necessary steps about locusts’ elimination.
The meeting was told that besides other provinces special attention was being given to Balochistan province to get rid of locust attack.
The chief ministers exchanged various proposals to the prime minister about the locusts situation, provision of the required funds by the provinces in that regard and to tackle with the issue.
