Ankara handed over a brave spray plane along with four crew members to Pakistan Air Force (PAF). The aircraft would be assembled before its departure for the pest infected areas in the country.
Turkey and Pakistan are all-weather friends and this gesture of giving a spray plane to Pakistan would help improve a comprehensive pest control system to overcome the locust plague, the PAF said in a statement. The aircraft was airlifted to Pakistan from Turkey’s southern province of Adana.
According to a spokesperson for the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), the aircraft has been leased for six months for aerial spray in locust-affected areas. “The use of the aircraft will be effective in eradicating locusts from the country,” he said.
The locust invasion has put Pakistan in a state of emergency. Swarms of locusts are wreaking havoc in the agricultural heart of Pakistan, destroying crops in Punjab and Sindh. This is the second locust attack in Pakistan in less than three months.
The desert locusts are large herbivores that resemble grasshoppers arrived in Pakistan from Iran and spread to as far as the Pakistan-India border around the Cholistan desert in Punjab after ravaging crops in Sindh and Balochistan.
For this purpose, he has suggested a virtual meeting between the two countries. The ambassador has called for the plant protection departments of the two countries to adopt a joint strategy to fight this deadly onslaught.
According to the minister, the Sindh government planned to buy more four-wheelers and spray equipment for use in the desert areas.
The agriculture experts expressed concern over the federal government’s failure to help eradicate locusts in Sindh and demanded immediate aerial spray.
According to the NDMA. Ghotki, Sukkur, Khairpur, Sanghar, Umerkot and Tharparkar districts of Sindh had suffered the most damage because of the locust attack. Swarms had also descended upon Nawabshah, Mirpurkhas, Badin, Thatta, Sujawal, and Karachi, it added.