Dr. Tasneem Ahmad
Desert locust Scistocerca grageria is the deadliest pest of agricultural economy and its breeding area extends up to sixty countries in Africa and Asia. In Pakistan, its breeding area spreads to about 300000 sq. km, out of which maximum area is in Baluchistan. Breeding precinct is divided into summer and spring breeding areas. Summer breeding normally occurs along the Indian border in the deserts of Tharparkar, Khipro and Cholistan. The summer breeding coincides with the monsoon rains during June/July to September/October. The time and scale of breeding differ every year, depending on the intensity of rains and resultantly emerging vegetation. These populations feed in desert and usually stay out of the agricultural areas except during periods of gregarious locust activity. Locust hoppers and adults from adjacent areas in Rajasthan, India frequently cross back and forth along the border during summer. Once the monsoon rains end and vegetation dry out, locust moves from summer breeding zone to the spring breeding areas in Baluchistan. Spring breeding normally occurs every year in Baluchistan, starting in coastal areas from west of Lasbela/Uthal to the Iranian border in February or March. As temperatures warm up, locust starts to appear in the interior of Baluchistan from Turbat to Dalbandin and Nushki, including Panjgur and Kharan valleys. The breeding areas continue into adjacent coastal and interior areas of southwest Iran (Sistan-Baluchistan province). However, year to year changes in these breeding sites depends on the intensity of the seasonal rains. The Lasbela/Uthal area is considered a transition zone where locust may be present nearly around the year and hence is not new or an invading pest. However, locust in its gregarious phase can play havoc with the agricultural crops. These gregarious invasions may be result of local breeding augmentation complemented by the movement of swarms from middle east/Africa.
For fighting this spectacular insect pest, a specialized department existed before partition. which Dr Taskheer Ahmed, a great scientist and an Imperial Entomologist, got it separated managed to transfer its assets from Delhi and established Department of Plant Protection (DPP) in Karachi. This department inter alia is mandated for desert locust survey and control in desert areas of Pakistan. This department has designated locust outposts in Baluchistan, Sindh and Punjab equipped with logistics including availability of desert vehicles mounted with sophisticated sprayers, stocks of locusticides, fuel and other necessities like GPS, Elocust for location of swarms and coordinating with FAO respectively. For survey and control trained technical and supportive staff remained station at these outposts, led by Deputy Director with specialization in entomology or an Entomologist, Additionally, for aerial spraying, a full-fledged aerial wing exists with two hangars in Lahore and Karachi. The aerial wing is led by an operational manager with hefty remuneration. To straighten the record, 90 % of the staff / manpower in DPP is meant for locust survey/control and is paid from the budget allocated for combating the desert locust menace. This staff is, however, temporarily assigned to other duties like plant quarantine and registration of pesticides under Pakistan Plant Quarantine Act 1976 and Agricultural Pesticides Act 1997, respectively. Such arrangements for day to day working cannot be made an excuse to re-locate or recall these personnel in locust control by shifting all staff/resources including supportive/administrative staff of all the stations to locust fighting fronts.
The current plague situation cannot be compared with Africa and the Middle East. In the past DPP was not only capable of controlling desert locust in Pakistan, but also extended this facility to UAE, KSA, Kuwait and other locust prone countries of the region, during the seventies and eighties. In addition to desert areas, this department was used to apply aerial sprays on cotton, sugarcane, rice, apples and date palm in all four provinces covering thousands of acres with two to three covers on crops, annually. Just to summarize, manpower, machinery and logistics of DPP, were just like a force with the facility to establish sub-outposts to cover maximum breeding area with ground and aerial operations with its own landing strips in Sindh, Punjab and KP. Unfortunately, most of these facilities have now been encroached. It has to be mentioned that DPP under the leadership of trained, professional and dedicated personnel ran successful campaigns of fighting desert locust during epidemic years of 1978, 1993 and 2010.
During last decade, the Ministry of National Food Security and Research (MNFS&R) after dumped a regular nominee of FPSC and appointed a number of quacks as Director General DPP which badly affected the technical capabilities of the department. Starting from an officer of the Postal Service, they hired a pilot of the department, a zoologist from SARC/PARC, a food security commissioner of MNFS&R and again a deputy curator/SSO from Insect Museum of NARC/PARC. All of them were not from the DPP and hence had no training/experience of working of DPP in general and locust survey and control in particular. These officers used this ladder successfully and planned their own progress, promotions and rewards/awards. As a result of their lack of interest and experience, DPP failed to maintain its capabilities of strategical logistics and manpower for fighting desert locust. The current crisis is the direct result of the inability and incompetence of these officers to follow the protocols of monitoring procedures and initiate the control at the initial stages of development of desert locust populations. As a result, the nation is facing a threat of food security and hue and cry of farmers has forced the government declare agriculture emergency in the country.
Since last year, local breeding coupled with migration from Middle East has resulted in desert locust swarms spreading beyond commonly infested deserts areas to cropping areas including the cities in the whole country. Although climate change and migration of swarms appears to be factors responsible for this epidemic, timely monitoring and initiation of the appropriate remedies may have saved the level of damage that is caused to our agriculture economy. One apparent reason for this plague is lack of timely efforts from the DPP headed by the non-technical officers who lacks the understanding of the problem of this pest. Instead of sitting in airconditioned offices and smiling (rather crying) on question about swarm in urban areas, this situation warranted deployment of all staff including supportive one be placed at the fighting fields by establishing a number of temporary sub-outposts in deep desert. By their incompetency, swarms first time entered in Karachi and surprised the Karachiites. Instead of focusing on fighting this menace with available tools and resources in deserts of Pakistan, the Director General himself was seen arranging seminars on awareness of locust. Reportedly, he asked his staff to fetch him live locust from the desert, while sitting in office/hotel indicating that he did not bother visiting the infested desert areas to plan and supervise the control operations. The demise of two operational pilots, who were given defective aircraft, despite complaint of late pilot, need investigation. The department failed to arrange locusticides for teams sitting idle for long periods of time in deserts. In such grave situations, he was needed to lead the campaign vigorously in deserts by avoiding his tours abroad. It is evident that he lacked expertise in planning and fighting these infestations merely because he is a non-technical person and did not have training or experience for the job. He is invariably unaware of the biology and behavior of the pest. He deserves an award and will definitely succeed like his predecessor to demonstrate that due to his effort, locust swarms reached to agricultural as well as urban areas after a period of more than half a century. His senior staff too remained present in offices when they were needed in deserts for technical, logistics and supplies. The teams were waiting for pesticides and department could not arrange any locusticides when the days were favoring the breeding of the locust. It was embarrassing when pesticide was requested from different private companies and departments. So much so a snob company published a photo in ‘Dawn’ that alms were being given in form of pesticides to a quack head of the department. None the less, it is fact that in such grave situations, heads are rolled and new teams are appointed by the government to fight the alarming and deteriorating conditions. I could not understand why such a failed team was maintained or rescued. Another identical quack is reportedly hired by FAO perhaps for stipend, without perusal of his credentials, to support the department in defeating the locust swarms. The zoologist retired from SARC/PARC has only qualification of supervising the department for few months with his minority support. He too has no qualification and expertise of the required subject, however he served as Director, Grain Storage Research Lab in SARC/PARC, and could not save wheat from insect damage every year resulting in shortage and creating food insecurity threat. He spent millions of rupees of budget for zero outcome of so-called research. Because of his personal influence, he got a medal from GOP as head of DPP on fake and exaggerated data of exports of mangoes and other fruits. When FBR and FBS statistics recorded deep dip in exports, this zoologist and a researcher of SARC/PARC was awarded a medal of increased exports in the field of agriculture. It is recalled and added that there was an important research wing of desert locust which was transferred to PARC from DPP with station at Bhawani Baluchistan, later on as research was abandon by PARC that important station was handed over to the government of Baluchistan.
Recently, news available on MNFS&R’s website, a team of Chinese experts is called for controlling this menace along with allocation of heavy budget to NDMA for combating desert locust. This clearly indicates the dis-satisfaction of government on the ministry/department. Taking on board of NDMA is encouraging, however, would be better if they participate and contribute at early stage before deterioration and worsening of the situation. To conclude, it is opined that quacks who have failed to take appropriate action in time because of their lack of qualification, training and expertise be replaced immediately with experts having technical qualifications, training, experience and expertise in combating the menaces.
