As swarm of locusts landed in Rajasthan like a biblical plague entering their houses, attacking their rooftops, galleries and devouring up their kitchen gardens and lawns, it seems like farm folks have taken notes from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'thali, taali and ghanti bajao' movement to ward off this infestation. It may have not helped much with the coronavirus but it did help in this case.
From loudspeakers to sirens, farmers have come up with innovative ways to save their crops from the locusts. Now, a video of people banging utensil to scare away the insects in Dholpur has gone viral.
Earlier, a video of farmers playing music on loudspeakers to combat the locust attack was circulated on Twitter.
On a related note, drones and planes will be used to fight the locust attack in Rajasthan, said B.R. Karwa, project director, Agricultural Technology Management Agency.
The locusts have changed their attack strategy this season and are flying at great height against their basic nature to fly in the low lying areas. Hence, Union minister for agriculture Kailash Chowdhary has requested the DGCA to help the government with planes which can fight the locust menace from a height by spraying pesticides, he informed.
The Locust Warning Organisation (LWO) had issued a notice that there was a swarm of locusts which had moved from Rajasthan and could enter Punjab, Gujarat and Haryana. Such an attack has been noted as unusual and at least five Indian states are on alert as it may result in crop destruction.
Besides utensils and speakers, the district administration in Panna used police sirens to scare away the insects.
Talking about the move, Suman, Agriculture Officer, Panna told ANI that the method has been adopted by the administration to save the crops from getting damaged. "This saved loss of agricultural crops here. The way to prevent them from damaging crops is to create loud noises or to spray insecticides," the Agriculture Officer said.
Meanwhile, officials of the agriculture department have blamed the neighbouring nation Pakistan alleging that it is preferring to sit idly by instead of taking any action to control the locusts as these insects have made the borders of Pakistan and Afghanistan their breeding centres.
Earlier, the breeding centres of locusts were African nations and hence they used to take time to reach India. However, now with the Pak-Afghan border becoming their breeding centre, they are entering Rajasthan from Pakistan.
