Once again the vast area of district Muzaffargarh has been under locust attack. This swarm of locusts affected cotton, fodder, and sunflower badly in different areas of Kot Addu and Muzaffargarh.
Locusts are a group of short-horned grasshoppers. They are mostly alone, but under certain conditions they rapidly reproduce in numbers and form swarms.
In some of the countries adversely affected by the locust swarms, where millions of people already suffer from less access to food, citizens are asking why the locusts can’t be turned into food or animal feed.
This is an old method used to get food after locusts devastated crops, but things have changed. Currently, outbreaks are managed using chemical insecticides or insect fungus. This would make the locusts toxic.
The district administration has started spraying the affected areas, the sources said adding that locals were also helping the administration and were beating the drums to fly them away.
DC Amjad Suhaib Tareen advised the farmers to inform the administration about the affected areas so that spray could be conducted there.
It is worth writing here ten kilometers (km) long and three kilometers wide swarm entered the district from Chowk Sarwar Shaheed on May 13 traveling from Rojhan of Rajanpur district, they informed.
Last Thursday night, the swarm landed at Mahmood Lot and UC Noor Kubra by traveling with western side.
The locust had moved towards Tehsil Jataoi and Alipur via Turkish Colony Mouza Sharifpura, Adda Ghulam Ali, Basiti Jannat Wala and Khangarh, the sources stated.
The swarm had traveled towards Multan later on.