Chandigarh, Jan 25 (PTI) Locusts were spotted in some villages of Punjab's Fazilka, Muktsar and Bathinda districts triggering fear among farmers as the destructive swarms are known to devour the vegetation wherever they settle.
The Punjab Agriculture Department (PAD), however, said necessary arrangements were in place to tackle a possible locust attack while ruling out any damage to crops at this stage.
Farmers from the three districts have urged the agriculture department officials to take urgent steps to tackle the pests.
"We have found locusts in our fields... they are not in large numbers though," said a farmer from Fazilka.
According to officials, locusts, popularly known as 'Tiddi Dal', have come from neighbouring Rajasthan which was attacked by one of the most destructive pests earlier this month following which authorities there undertook a massive exercise to contain the outbreak.
A few locust swarms were also reported in Anoopgarh and Sri Ganganagar districts of Rajasthan after their attack emanated from the desert area of Pakistan, they said.
The surveillance by scientists of Punjab Agricultural University at Abohar revealed the presence of locust hoppers in small numbers or groups (5 to 20) in Fazilka, Muktsar and Bathinda districts, they said.
Unless they appear in swarms comprising hundreds of thousands of hoppers, the pests do not pose a major threat to agricultural and horticultural crops, they said.
"There is no need to panic. A very small number of locusts have been spotted at a few places here," said PAD Director Sutantar Kumar Airi, asserting that there was no damage to crops.
We have around 250 to 300 big sprayers and also arranged chemicals for containing any attack of swarms of locusts," said Airi.
The current excursion of desert locust hoppers are well monitored and suitable control measures are in place, officials said.
The small non-breeding adult hopper groups are not expected to damage crops but the farmers should remain on the lookout for desert locusts in their areas.
However, they should not panic or start spraying pesticides on their crops, they said.
"We need to guard against fresh incursions from across the border in view of expected post-winter temperature rise and availability of crop vegetation over large contiguous area," P K Chhuneja, head of the department of Entomology at PAU Ludhiana said.
Locusts are short-horned grasshoppers with highly migratory habits and voracious feeding behaviour. Appearance of locusts in winter months is a new phenomenon and may be linked to climate change events, experts said.
India has not witnessed any full blown locust cycles after 1962, however, during 1978 and 1993, large scale upsurges were observed.
Localised locust breeding has also been reported and controlled during 1998, 2002, 2005, 2007 and 2010. Since 2010, the situation has remained calm and no major breeding and swarm formation have been reported, experts said.
