The University of Agriculture Faisalabad has dispatched a team of 25 trained internees to Cholistan and Thar to control locust and its surveillance.
The internees have joined the National Disaster Management Authority and Federal Plant Protection Department to work on locust control under the said departments supervision.
In a message, UAF Vice Chancellor Dr Muhammad Ashraf congratulated the Department of Entomology UAF for training the internees to overcome the issue. He added that in the country, as many as 38 per cent of the area is breeding grounds for the desert locust, whereas the entire country is under the threat of invasion if the desert locust is not contained in the breeding regions.
He lauded the measurers of the government for establishing a National Locust Control Centre to combat the plague which has destroyed agriculture on a vast tract with a severe locust attack in 60 out of 135 districts. He added that UAF had established a Locust Research and Development Cell meant to strengthen research, development and outreach activities, and coordinate with national and regional locust control organisations. It is in a working day and night to devise preventive, and curative locust control strategies.
The cell research areas include locust biology, ecology, behaviour, toxicology, pesticide resistance management, and development and evaluation of phytochemical-based biopesticides in integration with other biological control approaches for eco-friendly sustainable management. In addition to developing biopesticides, the UAF has already developed a three-in-one spray machine tested by farmers of the locust-hit areas.
