Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Minister Thoko Didiza has called on the public to alert the departments nearest district offices when they spot brown locusts.
In China farmers use armies of ducks to combat locust outbreaks, in East Africa they harvest them for animal feed, North Africans use a natural pesticide made from fungus and on a farm near Cradock they use dishwashing liquid.
Farmers in the Western regions of the Eastern Cape are being urged to act quickly to report and poison huge swarms of destructive brown locusts before they spread eastwards. Deputy president of Agri Eastern Cape Eben du Plessis on Monday said the Eastern Cape, along with the Western and Norther Cape was experiencing a major outbreak of brown locust (Locustana pardalina).
Apr 27, 2021 05:30 PM EDT
The Eastern Cape and Northern Cape provinces of South Africa currently went through their longest drought in 100 years. The seven-year drought, beginning with the absence of rains in February 2013, wrought disaster on this sheep farming community. The brown locust discovered in this region mainly feeds on grass but will also eat any green plants and has been known to destroy maize fields.
(Photo : Hemant Goyal)
Outbreak of Locust
When the summer rains eventually came in October 2020 the agriculturists had to face the outbreak of locust also. The two provinces are located within the Nama Karoo, a wide, open, arid area that is conquered by low-shrub vegetation.