Minister ridicules research council's offer to buy locusts from farmers.

MITHI -- Taking strong notice of establishing 12 centres in the desert region for purchasing alive or dead locusts at Rs15 per kg, Sindh Agriculture Minister Mohammad Ismail Rahu said that it was nothing but a cruel joke with the farmers of Tharparkar and other districts of Sindh.

In a press statement issued here on Thursday, he described the establishment of locust procurement centres as 'another insane and imprudent decision' by officials of the Agriculture Research Council (ARC) taken on the directions of federal government.

He made it clear that the Sindh government had nothing to do with such unwise decisions to further 'humiliate' the farmers instead of taking effective steps to exterminate the scourge of the locusts from Tharparkar and other districts of Sindh.

'The decision to catch and sell the locusts can only behove the people like Imran Khan and his cronies, but we in the Sindh government are trying our best to eliminate the dangerous insects through mechanised methods despite having limited resources,' he added.

He said the provincial government had been requesting the federal government, including the plant protection department, for the past several months to send an aircraft in the affected areas for the effective anti-locusts spray, but every time the Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government paid no attention, which led to massive damage to crops from June 2019. Still the locusts were posing even greater danger to the crops and other vegetation across the province, he added.

'But given the situation, it is nothing, but a cruel joke with farmers and people of Sindh to ask them to catch the insects and sell them at the designated centres in desert areas,' he added and asked the ARC officials not to meddle in the affairs of the Sindh government by forcing its officials...