Murad asks federal govt to provide more planes for operation against locusts.

KARACHI -- Chief Minister (CM) Syed Murad Ali Shah on Wednesday urged the federal government to provide six aircraft for spraying in the desert areas as locust swarms had once again started attacking standing crops in Sindh.

Presiding over a meeting regarding the locust threat in the province, he said he was receiving reports from growers that locust swarms had again started attacking crops.

'This is a serious situation which must be addressed at the earliest, otherwise food security issue would be compromised,' he told the meeting attended by Agriculture Minister Ismail Rahu, Chief Secretary Mumtaz Shah, and other relevant officials.

The CM said that a letter was written to Prime Minister Imran Khan on May 1, 2020, with the request to provide six aircraft, ultra-low volume (ULV) sprayers, pesticides in sufficient quantity, and to deploy field teams. But, he said, no concrete steps had been taken.

'Only an old aircraft with one pilot has been kept at Sukkur which has to cover Sindh and Balochistan,' he lamented and urged the federal government to send five more aircraft and required pesticides and teams so that locusts could be controlled before preparation of the Kharif crops.

The agriculture minister told the meeting that initially Ghotki and Kashmore districts were affected by locust swarms in April 2020 and now mostly the desert areas of the province were under threat.

The meeting was told that locusts came from Balochistan and taking the route of Jacobabad, Larkana, Qambar-Shahdadkot and Jamshoro travelled to other districts. 'Adult locust swarms almost affected all the districts, therefore the agriculture department took immediate efforts for survey and control operation,' Mr Rahu said.

The locust, the meeting was informed, attacked Ghotki district in April 2020 affecting 18,829 acres and a similar attack was reported from Kashmore where emergency was declared and 19,227 acres were sprayed.

Mr Rahu said the insects were in desert areas of Tharparkar, Umerkot, Sanghar, Shaheed Benazirabad, Khairpur, Sukkur and Ghotki. From there they could move to crop areas, which was a serious threat.

He said the plant protection department of the federal government also helped the agriculture department in control operation in the districts of Ghotki, Kashmore and Khairpur and covered an area of 18,871 acres.

The agriculture minister said that agriculture extension teams covered all districts up to 43,935 acres...