Pak-China desert locust control cooperation help protect crops in Pakistan

Beijing: Thanks to the joint efforts of both Pakistan and China, the desert locusts plague has finally been brought under control in Pakistan, which helped protect food security, experts said on Tuesday.

They were sharing their experiences in an interview published on China Economic Net (CEN).

In 2020-21 Pakistan experienced its worst locust outbreak in nearly three decades, causing severe crop yield reduction or even total failure in many areas.

“According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), desert locusts affected 38 percent of Pakistan’s land area. The swarms caused significant damage to food crops, including wheat, maize, and vegetables”, noted Prof. Hidayat Ullah from the University of Swabi.

Luckily, with the joint efforts of experts from both China and Pakistan, the locust plague was finally brought under control, he added. “The intensity has been reduced. Swarms have been restricted to the eastern border of Pakistan due to effective aerial spray,” he said.

With the support of the FAO, the Chinese Government and other international organisations, various control measures have been implemented to mitigate the impact of the outbreak, he said.

Researcher Tu Xiongbing from the Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) told CEN in an exclusive interview that he and Prof Hidayat Ullah co-published a paper titled “IPM-Biological and integrated management of desert locust”.

Tu mentioned that spraying chemical pesticides was the most effective way when the disaster-affected area is large. For smaller affected areas or relatively mild plagues, biological control measures can control the density. Preventive measures such as protecting natural enemies are also essential….

According to Prof. Hidayat, in February 2020, China donated USD 4.9 million worth of pesticides to Pakistan to help combat the locusts, as well as technical assistance from a team of experts.

It is learned that the key to eliminating locusts in Pakistan is to limit locusts to breeding places, preventing them from farmlands. The microbial control adopted by China, such as fungi and microsporidia that can parasitize locusts to reduce population density, depends on whether the domestic strains can survive in Pakistan.

“In addition to insecticides such as malathion and cypermethrin, we used a variety of effective biopesticides including Beauveria bassiana, Metarhizium anisopliae, Nosema locustae, etc., although the scale of the experiment is limited.”

“So far, the results we have achieved are, on the whole, satisfactory,” Prof Hidayat said echoing the idea of Tu.

Regarding future plans, Tu indicated that the Pakistan-China Center for Sustainable Management of Plant Pests and Diseases will be established this year to help Pakistan prevent and control main pests including desert locusts and fall armyworms, by which China is about to establish monitoring sites with Pakistan to monitor the migratory flight of these pests in time.

“Because the migration route of desert locusts is from East Africa across the Atlantic Ocean and into China, with the help of the westerlies, the important stop of these swarms on the way is the Thar Desert. From April to June, they transfer to Pakistan from the Horn of Africa, and move back in October and November. As long as the wind is strong and the population is large enough, the plague will also have a serious impact on China if we fail to take effective measures in a timely manner,” Tu informed.

Prof. Ullah proposed a more specific suggestion, “In Pakistan, very few are skilled in locust control related R&D. I wish to train graduates in this field or make collaboration with Chinese Universities to get funding for their MS and PhD research.”