Huge locust swarms overrun Indian cities left exposed by coronavirus lockdown

A locust swarm is making its way across the north of India, part of a prolonged streak of invasions of a severity not seen in 25 years, and which scientists are starting to link to climate change. 

With the country still in lockdown, authorities are struggling to control the spread of these pests, expected to continue well into the summer.

Swarms of immature locusts destroyed crops spread over 500,000 hectares in Rajasthan alone, and the damage could have been even worse had the major local crops, such as cotton, lentils and rice been ready for harvest. 

Prem Singh Gogeli, a farmer living near Jaisalmer, in Rajasthan, who owns 80 hectares of land, said that farmers were just recovering from a previous attack last winter when the locusts returned in full force, and while the damages to his farm were limited, because the fields had just been ploughed to plant cumin and pearl millet, the incursion was “very big”.

With other local farmers he sprayed pesticides in the fields and scared off the insects by banging metal pans and running in circles on a noisy tractor. He also filmed the insects storming the city of Jaipur, a rare and unsettling sight for urban residents.

Desert locusts entering the country from the Middle East via Pakistan are relatively common in rural Rajasthan and other northwestern areas, but this time the swarms have come much earlier than usual and already reached the central states of Madya Pradesh and Maharashtra. 

Usually, the swarms fly into India around June and until July, when the monsoons create the perfect breeding environment for the insects to bury their eggs and eat fresh leaves when they hatch. This year the incursions started weeks earlier due to spring breeding in southern Iran and southwest Pakistan. 

At this stage, the young insects are very voracious and very active, covering up to 100 miles per day. A single medium size locust swarm can contain 40 million insects, which can consume as much food in one day as 35,000 people. As they mature, their colour changes from pink to bright yellow, an evolutionary strategy to put off potential predators.

Singh Gogeli explains that due to their unseasonal arrival, the locusts found less food in the area, as many crops are still being sown, and they quickly moved inland in search of more. He feels that farmers facing an increasingly erratic locust presence in border areas still don’t get enough support. But “this time, the government had to take notice,” he said. 

Expecting abundant rains in June leading to new invasions until July, the government is ramping up preparedness. It’s deploying vehicles for monitoring activities, tractors and spray equipment to spread pesticides on the ground as well as drones to treat tall trees and other inaccessible areas.

But as India grapples with the economic devastation brought by the coronavirus and the world’s biggest lockdown, rapid response is made more difficult, said K L Gurjar, deputy director at the Locust Warning Organisation (LWO) in Faridabad.

He said that this incursion in times of pandemic makes things harder even for the highly specialised teams that have been dealing with the pest for decades.

“Social distancing rules and restricted movement between states make it more difficult for our operators to patrol the affected areas,” he explained, and some essential items needed to spray pesticides safely may be harder to acquire and transport.

Scientists agree with farmers on the ground when they observe that locusts invasions are becoming less predictable. Unseasonal incursions are linked to abnormal rainfall, explains Raghu Murtugudde, a climate scientist with the University of Maryland in the US.

This year, “for almost 90 days there was high rainfall over Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and north and central India,” he says. “Such intense pre-monsoon activity is quite unusual and the moisture seems to have been generated by what scientists call westerly disturbances”, storms that carry moisture in the upper atmosphere all the way from the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, “which this year have been warmer than normal.”

As oceans warm, in line with global warming trends observed across the globe, locusts multiply due to better breeding conditions. 

Ajay vir Jakhar, chairman of the farmers association Bharat Krishak Samaj, lives in Maujghar, a Punjabi village at the border with Pakistan.

He said that while there is currently no threat to food security nationally, mostly thanks to the availability of pesticides, better equipment and the efforts of communities on the ground, the government should increase coordination with the neighbouring nations that are also affected by the problem.

Data on weather conditions and locust breeding could be available nearly in real time, he said, but the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the government release them sporadically.

“My village is five kilometers from the border, if we don’t get warnings before the swarms arrive, what’s the use of an update? We need to know about locust movements at least one day in advance”, he said, adding that ideally the central government and FAO should release their bulletins twice a day.

While the political relations between the two countries are strained, cooperation on locust response would benefit everyone, Jakhar said. The Indian government should ramp up aerial spraying of pesticides on both sides of the border, and since Indian aircrafts are not allowed into Pakistan’s sky, it could rent local equipment.

“At the moment there is more panic than loss,” he said, “but if we do not act, the panic could turn into real loss.” Gurjar said that the locust control department is asking the government to increase resources in order to prepare for this summer’s likely incursions, but they are also alert to the fact that pest spread may become more erratic due to climate change.

“This year’s early attacks are one instance of unseasonal incursion,” he said, “and it’s possible that we will see more of that in future.”

Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security