Eat locusts to be rid of them, advises Rahoo

While Sindh’s crops are threatened by the locust advance from Balochistan, Sindh Agriculture Minister Ismail Rahoo has advised the people of the province to start catching and eating the insects to get rid of them.

A handout issued on Thursday quoted him as saying that locusts are as tasty as shrimps. He said the provincial government had written to the federal administration and Suparco (Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission) to carry out aerial application to thwart the locust attack.

He demanded that the federal authorities concerned should deploy a special team for the purpose. He said the locust advance could reach Punjab’s crops if the aerial application was not carried out in Sindh in time.

Rahoo said the attack on Sindh’s crops was identified in the first week of this month. He said that no major crop damage due to the locust advance was reported from anywhere in the province. So far the attack has been reported in Khairpur, Sanghar, Nawabshah, Matiari and Jamshoro, he added.

He said the Sindh government had deployed field teams and declared emergency wherever the locust attack had occurred. He added that the Pakistan Peoples Party had alerted the federal authorities much earlier about the situation.

It is worth mentioning here that some two decades ago, locusts were considered a delicacy in Thar, some other parts of Sindh as well as in certain desert areas of the Middle East, when locust attacks on crops occurred quite frequently.

Later on, consumption of locusts by humans considerably decreased in the region, as the use of modern pesticide methods significantly decreased its population.