The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Tuesday issued notices to the federal ministry of national food security and research, Sindh chief secretary and the provincial agriculture department on a petition seeking aerial and ground spray operations to kill locusts in the agricultural areas of Sindh.
The petitioner, Syed Mureed Ali Shah, submitted in the petition that the first generation of locusts from Balochistan could not be controlled by the respondent authority and now the second and third generation had invaded several districts of the province causing extensive damage.
He submitted that locusts had now entered heavily cultivated areas where they were eating crops, including wheat, vegetables, sugar cane and those grown for fodder of livestock animals, but the relevant federal and provincial authorities had failed to carry out spray to kill the insects.
The high court was informed that Sindh was the second most important province for cotton and wheat production after Punjab and due to the large scale infestation of locusts in the province the farmers, farmers wear afraid that locusts would destroy their delicate crops fields.
The SHC was requested to direct the federal and provincial governments to carry out ground and aerial spray to kill the insects without any further delay to protect the growers’ livelihood, and conduct a survey of the affected areas to provide relief to the farmers by declaring such areas stricken.
The high court, after the preliminary hearing of the petition, issued notices to the federal national food security and research department, Sindh chief secretary, agriculture secretary and others, and called their comments on December 20.