After wreaking havoc in Rajastan and MP, locusts attack UP

BIJNOR/JAIPUR/INDORE: Leaving a trail of crop destruction in 18 districts of Rajasthan and a dozen districts of Madhya Pradesh, an army of desert locusts has reached Jhansi and Agra in Uttar Pradesh, prompting the government to declare a state-wide alert. The crop-eating pests had first entered Rajasthan from Pakistan in the second week of April.
In Uttar Pradesh, locusts are feared to affect 17 districts — Agra, Aligarh, Mathura, Bulandshahr, Hathras, Etah, Firozabad, Mainpuri, Etawah, Farrukhabad, Auraiya, Jalaun, Kanpur, Jhansi, Mahoba, Hamirpur and Lalitpur.
According to Uttar Pradesh agriculture department officials, a big swarm of locusts can eat acres of crop within an hour. To deal with the situation, Uttar Pradesh’s agriculture department has launched a massive drive to educate farmers on how to keep the locust menace at a bay. In Agra, the district administration has deployed 204 tractors mounted with chemical sprays.
On May 20, swarms of locusts were spotted in Dausa district of Rajasthan. In five days, they had covered a distance of around 200km to reach Dausa from Ajmer. Now, the pests have entered UP.
In Madhya Pradesh locust swarms have wreaked havoc in at least 12 districts, destroying standing crops in the largest such attack in a decade. The swarms first entered Mandsaur and Neemuch on May 17 and then swept into 10 more districts. Mandsaur, Neemuch, Ratlam, Ujjain, Dewas, Shajapur Indore, Khargone, Morena and Sheopur have been the worst-hit.