(ORDO NEWS) — The strongest invasion of locusts over the past 26 years has forced Indian authorities to abandon unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to combat these insects, the Times of India reported.
They ascended into heaven above the western state of Rajasthan, where, due to hordes of gluttonous creatures, the sun is not visible now. Brisk drones adapted to control locusts are now bartering over one of the districts of the state capital of Jaipur, where the largest concentration of winged aggressors is noted. UAVs fly over locust flocks and spray chemicals on top of the pests.
The use of this technique proved to be very effective: there is no mercy of locusts from drones either in the air or on the ground, insects are under their blow, even when they sit down on tree branches to rest.
As it turned out, one of the obstacles to the successful control of locusts using UAVs was the outbreak of coronavirus infection. So, the authorities of Rajasthan made an order for 30 drones, and received only a third of this amount. These devices are now required for monitoring from the air the observance of the quarantine regime, and therefore they are in great shortage. At the same time, orders for UAVs also come from the governments of other Indian states – Punjab, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, where locusts are more and more reminiscent of themselves every day.
As the Indian Ministry of Agriculture reported on its website, in these states the battle with locusts is now being fought on an area of 47,308 ha. Numerous fire brigades and special equipment spraying pesticides around the clock fight insects. And the locusts that arrived from neighboring Pakistan, however, are becoming more and more there.
Typically, swarms of locusts arrive in India from Pakistan in June-July with the advent of the monsoon. However, this year the raids of these insects began much earlier due to the fact that most of last year’s locust population was somehow preserved on Pakistani territory.
2020 was generally very favorable for the reproduction of these gluttonous insects. Recently, locust invasions have forced SOS to alert 23 countries in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. To fight it, the World Bank last week decided to allocate $ 500 million to the affected states.
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