HYDERABAD: Sindh Agriculture Minister Ismail Rahu has said that the provincial government has diverted all its resources to the control of locusts. He acknowledged that the locusts’ swarms spiralling in various parts of Sindh were a potential threat to the wheat crop, but expressed the hope that the menace would be controlled within a fortnight.
Mr Rahu was speaking at a press briefing held in the directorate of agriculture extension here on Friday. He said the federal government would also have to strengthen its plant protection department to achieve the desired results and avert such locusts’ invasions in coming years.
He regretted that currently the plant protection department could provide only one aircraft for aerial spray so far and committed provision of another one soon. He noted that 17 of its 20 aircraft were lying out of order. He said the provincial government would need at least three such aircraft for the operation. Under the bridge finance arrangement, Sindh government had released Rs10 million for the department, which lacked adequate fuel and pesticides.
The minister said that the Sindh government had on its own released Rs330m for evolving a proper system to counter the locust threat. Soon, six imported sprayer-fitted vehicles would be inducted and employed to carry out ground operation against the swarms, he added.
He said that staff from all wings of agriculture department had been engaged for ground operation.
‘Menace will hopefully be overpowered within a fortnight’
He said the swarms, which had entered Sindh from India, were now moving towards Balochistan.
Mr Rahu apprehended that in case of fresh breeding, the population of locusts might multiply manifold. However, he said, the Sindh government was in constant coordination with the federal government and had also declared an emergency to meet the challenge.
He promised that a survey of affected areas would be conducted and, if need be, the worst-hit areas would be declared calamity-hit.
Sharing official figures with the media, presence of locusts’ swarms was reported from areas measuring 575,000 acres or 407 square kilometres.
He said that 101,613 acres of cropped area was partially affected by locusts. A total of 44,404 acres had been covered through ground sprays while aerial spray was carried out on 17,654 acres of desert areas.
The minister said that 40 teams of the agriculture extension department were in the field in addition to the 18 joint teams of the agriculture extension and plant protection department.
Speaking on other issues, the minister pledged that official sugar cane rate would be notified soon. He maintained that the delay was caused because the Sindh government was waiting for Punjab to fix its official rate. He hinted that the rate in Sindh would be a few rupees more than that of Punjab.
The agriculture extension department was sending another 15 field teams today (Friday) to join the operation.
He said the Sindh government was making effort to fix a rate acceptable to both cane growers and sugar millers in order to avoid litigation, often resorted to by the latter over the issue.
Mr Rahu claimed that 26 sugar mills had started cane crushing and a few others did not do so for different reasons.
Published in Dawn, December 7th, 2019
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