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Ducks Ready to Fight Locusts in Xinjiang
China plans to transport more ducks by air to Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to eat locusts that have been threatening the farmland there.
"If it is not cold in Xinjiang, my second group of 'duck soldiers' will go to the region by plane to fight crop-eating locusts this month," said Yang Dayuan, a farmer in the Tianping village, east China's Zhejiang Province.
In June, 30,000 ducks raised by Yang were shipped by air to Xinjiang and ate up millions of locusts in one of the region's worst plagues in decades. A duck is able to eat half a kilogram of locusts a day.
Some 2.6 million hectares of grassland in northwestern China region were attacked by locusts this year.
Finding that Yang's ducks have great fighting capability, Xinjiang wants more assistance from Yang.
A researcher at the Zhejiang Academy of Agriculture Science, Lu Lizhi, said that using planes that spray pesticides to kill the locusts is very expensive and can cause pollution.
Using ducks, however, is environmentally friendly. Plus, along with the ducks eating the locusts they can also eat their eggs.
Since the ducks' main diet consists of high-protein locusts, they will grow healthy and fast and will get a higher price on the market after they retire from pest-control duty.
Yang revealed that he plans to sell another 300,000 ducks to Xinjiang next year.
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