locusts attack on a land

Locust Attack in Pakistan

Talking about locusts, one must remember that this isn't something new. They have been coming for years and have been causing damage to crops since long. Whenever locusts attack, they leave with a shortage of food supply, sometimes the fertility of the soil is lost as they eat the roots even. These problems however occur naturally and humans have been facing them since long.

Talking about the present condition of locust attack in Pakistan, it all started from Arabian Peninsula in May 2018, too much rainy climate for a long time caused locusts to breed freely due to which their number became unexpectedly huge. Starting from Saudi, these swarms moved all the way to Pakistan, India, Kenya, Iran and many other countries in 2019. Near the Indian Ocean, the climate was again rainy and now the reproduction rate of locusts again multiplied up to 8000 folds. This caused the locusts to increase in much a larger number than that could be expected. At the end of 2019, emergency conditions were expected in a few areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province as the situation of locust attack was alarming. Some measures were also taken but the condition did not get much worse by the Grace of Allah Almighty.

In Pakistan, in January 2020, locusts attacked with a much larger force and this time it was totally out of control. The situation got so worse that the Government got involved and tried to help those farmers whose crops were destroyed by these locusts. This time not only in the village and tribal areas but the locusts attacked the cities as well as and came all the way to Karachi and Multan.

As of the preventive measures, the government helped the farmers by helicopters and sprays which may help in preventing these hoppers from laying eggs. There arises a serious problem when these locusts lay eggs where they sit on the crops. Proper spray is required for preventing these eggs from hatching otherwise this attack would keep on increasing year by year and farmers won't be able to grow crops anymore. here is a link given below for better understanding of how locusts attack.

https://youtu.be/6bx5JUGVahk

The best measure that should be taken is to search for the place where these locusts breed. If we get to know this then proper spray over that place might prevent them from breeding. The only way to stop these attacks is by controlling their number. This can be done by stop their breeding otherwise their number will go on increasing day by day and year by year more disastrous attacks would leave farmers empty handed and food supply to the whole country might be affected leading to severe famine.

Not only Pakistan but India is also facing the same problem. This is the worst invasion of the century of these hoppers. These two countries which are biggest rivals in this region, are trying to help each other in this time of calamity by working together and looking for a way out of this. For this, they have coordinated with The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Hope for the best in this regard.