Locust; a threat to the Food Security

Scientific name: - Schistocerca gregaria

It belongs to family Arididae. It is one of the desert species. Interesting thing about locus is that they have two phases in their life one of them is solitary Phase and another is gregarious phase and their habits are completely different in these two phases and the second one is the most devastating phase. Normally they take 4 weeks to complete their lifecycle but at present context its growing faster. They always stay and move in group forming swarm and also feed gregariously. The interesting reason about moving in group is that when the vegetation runs out, winged adults release pheromones and send message that they must move to another place. They feed following the smell of sprouting grass.

It entered in Nepal in 26^th June 2020 and its spreading in devastating form and has been affecting our food production negatively. It can move 150 km in one day towards the direction of wind that will help them to conserve their energy while moving. It has found that one swarm of locust (40-80 million per swarm) consumes food enough for 35000 people in a day and it’s a biggest threat as its presence in the field can damage the entire field at once destroying greenery and it has already happened in many parts of the world. When the world's economy is toppling down due to corona virus the addition of the locus problem has increased the problem in in the food production sector since the entry of a Swarm of locusts destroy the entire field in a day. In this current situation food security has been a greater challenge to the country. This desert species can affect 20% of the earth's land, more than 65 of the world's poorest countries and potentially damage the livelihood of one tenth of the world's population.

It's really hard to control them and to protect our food present in the field. An application of insecticides is also harmful as it can indirectly affect us and our environment. So, in the present context in my country in different places farmers are trying to get rid of them by making different kind of sounds, using different kinds of music and the government has also decided to give money in return to those people who collect the locust. At present due to a second wave of locust invasion government has decided to raise payment to 500 rupees per KG after knowing that the locus can be converted into chicken feed which contains 70% protein than that of the soybean given to them which contains only 50% of protein. But those still can’t be considered as the permanent solutions to save our environment, food and health.