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Anti-locust Campaign Succeeds
The severe plague of summer locusts, which has affected 6 million hectares of land and beaches in China has been brought under control with intensified pest-killing efforts, officials at the Ministry of Agriculture announced Tuesday.
Ministry officials warned that it is still too early to be optimistic, since combating autumn locusts could be an even tougher task since many insects have survived the summer's eradication programme, and foreign locusts may invade at any time.
Locusts had swarmed beaches and mostly uncultivated land in half of China's provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, including Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Tianjin and Xinjiang, according to Zhu Enlin of the ministry.
Zhu, a division director of the ministry's National Agro-Technical Extension Centre, which orchestrated this year's locust prevention and eradication work, said compared with previous years, locusts infested a larger area in a greater density in 2000.
The density of locusts reached 5,000 per square metre in some badly hit regions, Zhu said. Insects devoured reeds and weeds in uncultivated areas and then moved on to farmland.
In Xinjiang, locusts consumed 666,000 hectares of grassland and 433,000 hectares of crops by the end of June, indicated the latest ministry statistics.
Experts attributed this year's severe locust disaster to chronic droughts, which left beaches almost uncovered and caused the water level in reservoirs and lakes to drop.
Entomologists said the country's widespread efforts to return reclaimed land to lakes, grassland and beaches in recent years have in fact enlarged locust-friendly habitats.
"The immigration of immense numbers of locusts from foreign countries, including Khazakstan, has exacerbated the insect infestation in China," Zhu said.
The pest control campaign began in early May, when the ministry organized insecticide-spraying, biological prevention and ecological control technology to try to scale down economic and ecological losses caused by possible locust plagues, Zhu said.
The central and local governments have allocated more than 60 million yuan (US$7.23 million) for pest-control chemicals and equipment, he said.
More than 2,600 tons of chemicals, plus 10 crop-dusting aircraft, were used during the summer programme, Zhu said.
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