Published 13:47 IST, May 28th 2020
As India fights locust swarms, you have to see how China battled its worst insect attack
India has not just been battling the COVID-19 pandemic but also one of the worst locust attacks in almost 30 years. China had used an innovative strategy
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India over the past few days has not just been battling the COVID-19 pandemic but also one of the worst locust attacks in almost 30 years. Swarms of locusts originating from the India-Pakistan border have flooded the country moving swiftly through the states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, rapidly advancing towards border areas of Uttar Pradesh, and now Odisha. Travelling swiftly, these vicious swarms devour crops and cause massive losses to the agricultural sector.
While India has been put on high alert and has been actively destroying and surveying these trans-border swarms, it was almost two decades ago that next-door neighbour China faced a similar locust plague where locusts infiltrated the country finishing off 3.8 million hectares of crops and grassland.
Unlike the modern-ways of warding off these pests including the mass spraying of pesticides with the help of drones, China was able to fight the insects using a naturally available 'biological weapon' that not many of us would think off at first.
It was birds that defeated the worst locust plague in China. Over 7 lakh ducks and chickens were marched down to Xinjiang to fight the destructive swarms. Emerging victorious these otherwise harmless balls of fluff are quite effective when it comes to fighting off locusts. As per reports, a single duck can eat more than 200 locusts a day.
As the breeding ground of locusts in Pakistan continues to wreak havoc, China has decided to help its next-door neighbour and send over 1 lakh ducks to Pakistan from its eastern province of Zhejiang. This ' duck troops' will be deployed to Pakistan's worst-affected areas of Sindh, Balochistan and Punjab provinces.
China unleashes 100,000 specially trained ‘duck troops’ to take on swarms of locusts approaching China from its border with India and Pakistan. Each duck can consume up to 400 locusts a day.
— Eva Zheng 郑怡斌 عائشة (@evazhengll) February 20, 2020
Chinese zoologists are in research of containing locust plague with genetic modification. pic.twitter.com/aXTxERdtLZ
Meanwhile, in India, the Locust Warning Organization (LWO), under the Ministry of Agriculture, has a team of 50 people monitoring and tracking the locust swarms. Drones are being used for aerial spraying of ‘Malathion 96’, which is an organophosphate insecticide. Maybe it is time for India to also look towards employing 'duck troops' to fight the infestation. Maybe a quack attack is all we need.
13:47 IST, May 28th 2020