Hyderabad: India is currently reeling under the worst plague of locusts, a crop-damaging migratory pest, in decades.
India has not witnessed any full-blown locust cycles after 1962. However, during 1978 and 1993, large-scale upsurges were observed. Localised locust breeding was controlled in 1998, 2002, 2005, 2007 and 2010.
The current locust outbreak appears to result from cyclones which affected the Arabian Peninsula in 2018, together with warm weather at the end of 2019 which was also combined with heavy rains in East Africa.
What is a locust plague?
Locust is an insect that belongs to the family of grasshoppers. These insects are essentially harmless unless they meet certain circumstances under which they become more abundant and change their behaviour.
When these locusts meet suitable environmental conditions, they become congenial and start breeding abundantly. With their population becoming denser, they form swarms and keep moving across areas damaging the crops.
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These swarms attacking crops and thereby devastating the entire agricultural economy is what is commonly referred to as locust plague.
Usually, the locust swarms enter the scheduled desert area of India through Pakistan for summer breeding in the month of June/July with the advent of monsoon.
This year, however, incursions of locust hoppers and pink swarms have been reported much earlier because of the presence of the residual population of locust in Pakistan which they couldn't control last season.
The government has stepped up efforts to control swarms
A few countries such as Somalia and Pakistan have declared the locust outbreak as a national emergency.