The country’s western provinces are the most affected. About a thousand people are involved in pest control. The authorities have treated more than 55,000 hectares of farmland. In 1996, FAO created a unit to handle emergencies. Locusts are a problem in Central Asia, Russia and the Caucasus.

Dushanbe (AsiaNews) – Locusts have infested more than 70,000 hectares of farmland in western Tajikistan. The authorities are treating the affected areas with insecticide.

Locust infestation is a plague that cyclically affects the countries of Central Asia, the Caucasus and southern Russia.

In Tajikistan, the State Unitary Enterprise ‘Locust Control’ treated more than 55,300 hectares of locust-affected areas with insecticides.

The south-western province of Khatlon is the worst hit area.  Here, locusts have affected more than 40,400 hectares of agricultural lands.

In the north-western province of Sughd (Sogdia), locust infestations have hit more than 20,000 hectares of agricultural lands.  

More than 1,000 people are reportedly involved in the locust-combating campaign and relevant international organisations are providing assistance for locust control.

In 1996, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) set up an Emergency Coordination Unit (ECU) in the Central Asian nation to work on emergency locust control projects.

Since then, the emergency programme has expanded steadily with the creation of new veterinary field units, improved agricultural infrastructure and strengthened domestic seed production.

Tajikistan is not alone in this problem. The locust threat affects all the countries of the region. In 2000, Kazakhstan treated 8 million hectares.

The amount of land that locusts infested in Kazakhstan reached 3.7 million hectares in 2013. “Locusts do not observe political borders,” expert Alex Latchininsky said.

“The window of opportunity to control locusts is narrow” each year, Latchininsky pointed out. “It is only three to four weeks in the nymph stage after the insects hatch. Once they become adults, it’s very difficult” to combat them, he added.

Locust-control experts used a DDT-like pesticide to fight locusts during Soviet times “But even now we can find this pesticide in the body of locusts,” Latchininsky explained.

“Now they’re using pesticides less harmful to the environment,” he said. “They’re also starting to use biological means to combat locusts, but these are too expensive and too slow.”

• tajikistan
• locust
• pesticides
• insecticides