The locust swarms have already hit six Indian states spearing into Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Punjab now, after Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Haryana, as the government said it has stepped up its response to the country’s worst locust attack in nearly three decades.
Pakistan has turned the locust attack into an opportunity by converting it into chicken feed. People in Pakistan’s Okara district trap locusts which are turned into high-protein chicken feed by animal feed mills.
Locust attack: Delhi issues advisory for spraying pesticides
The mastermind behind this is Muhammad Khurshid, a civil servant of the Ministry of National Food Security and Research, and Johar Ali, a biotechnologist from the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council.
Johar said, “We were mocked for doing this – no one thought that people could actually catch locusts and sell them”.
The report said climate change played a huge role in the locust plague. It started after exceptional cyclonic rainfall moistened the “Empty Quarter” deserts of Saudi Arabia in 2019.
RSS affiliate Swadeshi Jagran Manch’s (SJM) national co-convener Ashwani Mahajan has urged India to take a cue from Pakistan and turn the “locust threat” into “chicken feed”.
“I saw an article which shows that Pakistan has turned the locust threat into an opportunity by converting it into chicken feed. If there is a good idea originating from anywhere, we should be open to exploring such ideas. We should adopt good ideas, there is no harm in that,” Mahajan told in an interview.
He also shared the article on Twitter and wrote: “Pakistan turns locust threat into chicken feed. Need to understand the idea and replicate it in India”.
Pakistan turns locust threat into chicken feed Need to understand the idea and replicate the same in india. #LocustAttack https://t.co/k2Agy6IXwq
— ASHWANI MAHAJAN (@ashwani_mahajan) May 28, 2020
According to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, “A swarm of 40 million locusts can eat as much food as 35,000 people, or six elephants”.
Both India and Pakistan have been severely affected by the locust attack.
