The Indian agriculture can’t seem to catch a break this year, with COVID-19 lockdown affecting their sales in April and May to record production to locust attacks to a good monsoon, and now floods in many regions have made it nothing short of a roller coaster ride for the agriculture sector.
Keeping the trend alive new swarms of locusts have been located in Gujarat and Rajasthan that have added to the miseries of the farmers in these states. There were earlier warnings of impending swarms that were growing in East Africa of invading the country from the end of July right through September.
The locust control operations were carried in 37 places in Jaisalmer, Barmer, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Churu, Nagaur, Jhunjhunu, Hanumangarh, and Sri Ganganagar in Rajasthan and Kutch district in Gujarat. The government claims that is has covered an area of 2,14,130 hectares in all the sates from April to July.
Rajasthan has faced the brunt of the locust attacks with it suffering the maximum damage while other states have reported little to no crop damage in the recent weeks.
But the danger has not passed as Food and Agriculture Organisation has predicted that new locust places in swarms will migrate to India via Pakistan from Sudan, Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Somalia.
