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Pakistan turns locust threat into chicken feed

Pakistani scientists have successfully tried a simple solution to turn the pests into protein and income amid the worst swarms for decades

Desert locusts attack crops near Okara district, Pakistan. (Photo: Pacific Press Agency/Alamy)

As the biggest locust swarms for more than 25 years threaten India and Pakistan’s breadbasket regions, a pilot project in Pakistan offers a way to cull the crop-destroying pests without using insecticides that harm people and the environment.

Huge swarms darkened the sky in Jaipur in recent days; one resident of Rajasthan’s biggest city said it was like being “overtaken by aliens,” the New York Times reported. However, the biggest threat is to farmers and poor rural communities already hit hard economically by Covid-19.

Pakistan’s eastern provinces were first overwhelmed in the winter. Fresh swarms are just beginning to take to air and are expected to grow until mid-summer. Pakistan’s government approved a National Action Plan for locust control in February and airborne spraying of some 300,000 litres of insecticide is taking place.

With locusts attacking our crops during the day, bats attacking our mango orchards at night and coronavirus attacking us in our homes day and night, where do we go?
Ghulam Sarwar Panhwar

Climate change has played a role in the locust plague. It started after exceptional cyclonic rainfall moistened the “Empty Quarter” deserts of Saudi Arabia in 2019. Biblical quantities of locusts hatched and have been breeding ever since. The swarms were swept eastwards through Iran to Pakistan by seasonal winds. After breeding in Pakistan’s eastern deserts, the locusts took to the air again in late winter. Now, another generation has hatched, and crossed into India.

See: A plague of locusts

Imminent danger

“Towards the end of May and in June and July, high level migration is expected,” warns Tariq Khan, director of the Technical Department of Plant Protection in Pakistan’s Sindh province.

Farmer Ghulam Sarwar Panhwar saw millions of the pests devour his cotton and moringa crops in just a few hours. “This was their second attack this month. With locusts attacking our crops during the day, bats attacking our mango orchards at night and coronavirus attacking us in our homes day and night, where do we go?” asks Panhwar, who owns two farms totalling 300 acres in the Hyderabad district of Sindh.

The pesticides used by the government are carcinogenic to humans and poisonous to wildlife, warns Sohail Ahmed, an animal biologist at the University of Agriculture in Peshawar. “No bio safe pesticide is being used at the moment. These chemical sprays are toxic for the environment and will affect humans, wildlife and livestock.”

Farmers in Sindh, Balochistan and parts of Punjab near Pakistan’s desert regions have already noticed changes. “Already the parrots have died out due to the pesticides used in fruit orchards. I’ve noticed that the crows that used to eat the locusts have stopped coming,” says Panhwar, who fears the impact on the water supply, soil and crops.

Simple solution

With the locust problem escalating, an innovative pilot project in Pakistan’s Okara district offers a sustainable solution in which farmers earn money by trapping locusts that are turned into high-protein chicken feed by animal feed mills.

“We were mocked for doing this – no one thought that people could actually catch locusts and sell them.”
Johar Ali

It was the brainchild of Muhammad Khurshid, a civil servant in the Ministry of National Food Security and Research, and Johar Ali, a biotechnologist from the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council.

“We were mocked for doing this – no one thought that people could actually catch locusts and sell them,” says Ali.

Khurshid says they were inspired by an example in Yemen in May 2019. The motto in that war-torn country facing famine was, “Eat the locusts before they eat the crop.”

They selected Okara district, as it is a heavily populated rural area of Pakistan’s Punjab. They set up a three-day trial project in the Pepli Pahar Forest in Depalpur, where huge swarms of adult locusts were reported in mid-February 2020. The forest area was chosen as it was less likely to be contaminated by insecticide.

Popular idea

Using the slogan, “Catch locusts. Earn money. Save crops”, the project offered to pay farmers 20 Pakistani rupees (USD 0.12) per kilogram of locusts.

Locusts only fly in daylight. At night, they cluster on trees and open ground without dense vegetation and remain almost motionless till sunrise the next day. Locusts are easy to catch at night, Khurshid says.

The community’s locust haul averaged seven tonnes a night. The project team weighed the locusts and sold them to nearby plants making chicken feed. Farmers netted up to 20,000 Pakistani rupees (USD 125) per person for one night’s work.

Community members collecting locusts in Okara, Pakistan
Community members use nets to collect locusts in Okara, Pakistan (image by: Muhammad Khurshid)

“On the first day in the field we had to send word out and around 10-15 people showed up,” says Ali. But word of the money to be made spread quickly, and hundreds of people showed up by the third day. “We did not even have to provide them with bags, they brought their own on their motorbikes. All we did was to weigh the bags and check that they were indeed full of locusts, and then pay them for their efforts.”

High protein

Muhammad Athar, the general manager Hi-Tech Feeds (within the Hi-Tech Group, one of Pakistan’s biggest poultry breeders and animal feed makers), says his firm fed the bug-based feed to its broiler chickens in a five-week study. “All nutritional aspects came out positive – there was no issue with the feed made from these locusts. If we can capture the locusts without spraying on them, their biological value is high and they have good potential for use in fish, poultry and even dairy feed,” he says.

There are an estimated 1.5 billion chickens being raised in Pakistan plus innumerable fish farms – all of which could potentially buy high protein locust meal.

“We currently import 300,000 tonnes of soya bean and after extracting the oil for sale, we use the soya bean crush to use in animal feed. Soya bean has 45% protein whereas locusts have 70% protein. Soya bean meal is 90 Pakistani rupees per kilogram (USD 0.5), whereas locusts are free – the only cost is capturing them and drying them so they can be sold as useable product,” says Athar.

Commercial interest

The processing cost of drying and milling locusts is only 30 Pakistani rupees per kg (USD 0.19). As Pakistan imports soya beans, he sees substantial potential savings in foreign exchange costs too.

Right after the pilot study, the coronavirus pandemic forced Khurshid and Ali to put any further moves to scale up the project on hold, despite interest from large-scale commercial operators.

Now that the lockdown has been eased in Pakistan, Ali says they can start again. All that is needed is for the local community to collect the locusts and sell them. “There are so many jobless people because of the pandemic. They can all be put to work collecting the locusts and selling them,” he says. Furthermore, rice-milling firms now have spare summer capacity, as rice is usually milled in winter.

“It’s an out-of-box solution – it could easily be scaled up in our populated rural areas. Yes, in our desert areas where locusts breed chemical sprays make sense but not in areas where we have farms with crops and livestock and people,” says Ali.

“It’s a very good idea – the only missing part is the buy-back mechanism,” says Khan, who heads Sindh’s Technical Department of Plant Protection. “Who will pay the local community for the locusts they collect? The animal feed industry needs to get involved.”

Bags of locusts collected in Okara district (image by: Muhammad Khurshid)

Urgent problem

Khan cautions that while harvesting locusts suits populated farming areas, “In large desert areas we have to rely on chemical sprays.” He expects the swarms to carry on multiplying till November, and believes an integrated approach is necessary.

“Since 1993 when the last large swarms of locusts arrived in Pakistan, the country has largely seen a dry spell. Locusts need soil moisture in the desert to thrive,” he says.

Since arriving from Yemen, the locusts have bred for three generations without a pause. They flew across to Balochistan in 2019 and started breeding there. They entered Sindh, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during the last winter/spring breeding season. According to Khan, the second breeding season that will last from May to November has started.

Source: FAO

Pakistan’s official locust action plan funded the National Disaster Management Authority to procure insecticide and aircraft. “This is a coordinated effort involving the NDMA, the Ministry of Food Security and provincial agricultural departments and the provincial disaster management authorities. We have been spraying extensively in the desert areas in the locust breeding areas. You can’t eradicate locusts but you can control them,” he says.

Khurshid said that as massive locust swarms are expected from the end of May, the local communities should be encouraged to catch locusts through buyback guarantees as soon as possible. The government, he pointed out, should both support and encourage private poultry and animal meal enterprises to buy the locusts and should stop spraying in areas where community-based locust collection is possible.

Ahmed advocates a strategy of mass netting. “Nets, which can be as high as 50 feet stretched across poles in the ground, are a one-time cost and they can keep catching the locusts as they come in multiple swarms,” he says.

Large scale development of indigenous natural pesticides like neem tree oil could also play a role as locusts will not touch plants sprayed with it, says Helga Ahmed, a veteran environmentalist based in Islamabad.

Useful lessons

Pakistan’s example may be useful for India. There is usually some locust activity in western Rajasthan and Gujarat most years. But this year the spread has extended to eastern Rajasthan, and locust swarms have been seen in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. An unusually wet late winter season has laid the pathway for the locusts to spread, though a heatwave in central India may provide some relief.

Comments (26)

It is truly tragic that Pakistan has completely ignored the Dr. Salimuzaman Siddiqi research in the amazing benefits of Neem Oil, Neem ke kal and its leaves.

In 1962 he sprayed the oil on agricultural crop near Khi and the locusts did not touch it. Another trial of spraying it on breeding grounds showed that locusts do not die, but the reproductive cells are destroyed.

How can this country survive, when only toxic spray is spread all over the agri lands?

Chemical lobbies are using this problem to peddle more hazardous chemicals. In fact, these chemicals have killed birds and other creatures that could have fed on locusts and their eggs.

And these chemicals nor only kill animals, but we all will be eating it in our food. Should we sue the chemical industry?

It’s a novel approach for locust control, combating the damage to crops and, at the same time, providing additional protein source in preparation of poultry feeds. This must be continued as sustainable development operations through involvement of local farmers, experts, and of course the relevant academics and government departments.

information compiled by Rina Saeed Khan is appreciable to convert the problem into opportunity. But make sure that collected locust must not be exposed to chemicals.

Now that a concept has been given, its efficacy and further sustainability, can be tried in times to come.The locust problem is not going to end soon and we may have to live with it for times to come due to global climatic changes happening. The idea of conversion of locust protein is a good beginning in that sense. Spraying of pesticides is bound to destroy whatever is left of ecosystem in the areas of infestations in the subcontinent. Congrats to the people who have come with the concept. It would be enjoined on authorities to encourage such local solutions to ward off the otherwise big disaster in making.

this is excellent move, ya they are good source of proteins , imagine the quality of chickens grown through this , its way better then the dirty food currently they give to chickens so this is very good move , i request gov to capture them alive and create even farms of it and then sell them even ahead because as they are monetized now soon this wave will end up.

reply to @Helga Ahmad Neem Oil is expensive compare to chemicals , or do you have any cheap solution to acquire neem oil
thanks

Good article and positive too. As the locust issue is there for time centuries the communities must have had some or other way of handling the issue. Also the kinds of crops resistant to locusts, cropping pattern to manage problems. After the Green revolution lobby’s effort such social knowledge is wiped out. Its the time to rediscover them. More over there must be efforts to identify the plants that are not eaten by the locusts. As they have some kinds of alkaloids that are not liked by the locusts they are the solution. Just crush them dilute with water and spray on crops, as the organic farmers of Tamilnadu do in managing the pests.
Another area the world need to look in to is homeopathic drugs that repel or protect the crops. There are many drugs for different pests and are getting some attraction among the farmers.
Certainly the chemicals are more disastrous than the locusts. Locusts will come and go but the chemicals sprayed remain for long, sometimes even for decades causing unimaginable damages.
Appreciations to the author for a nice positive article.

Out of box solution, Bravo. These initiatives should be supported and encourage at all level. Well done 👍

Really very informative article, how to prevent measures are give clearly ,the importance of neem oil everyone will understand.

This is a novel and an innovative approach to deal with the attack of locusts.The method has no side effects as we get by using pesticides.There is an incentives for the young locals they should seriously do it and pay from it their school or college tuition fees and some focal points should be created where the poultry and fish related entrepreneurs should come forward and contact the focal centres to collect.Congrats to the author who has written such a nice article and brought to the limelight such an important issue as well as its cheap proper solution.The 21st century renowned Pakisani social scientist Dr.Akhata Hameed Khan had emphasized the need of the dire need of the community participation to deal with such issues at a local level and that has been highly successful in the NAs of Pakistan and Chitral KP

Locusts can be fried in hot sand and is absolutely safe for consumption for animals human beings. It is common practice since ages and can be adopted with benefits of edible high protein.Measures can be taken to store if hygienically packed and shelf life can determined as such.

If this matter will not be handled seriously then it may lead farmers into grave danger. Government has already started taking effective precautions to save farmers from the locust swarm. Various chemicals, pesticides are being sprayed through drones and other vehicles.
At this point of time one can only hope for the best and try to tackle this tremendous situation

locusts is good for human consumption too , its highly nutritious, may be we can start some thing like KFC equivalent LOCUST CLUB .

Here in Thailand, the time was around 1982-1987 when we had the same problem with swarm of locusts in Northeast Thailand. The effective solution was accidentally discovered: catch them, and deep fried them and eat them. The initial recipe was salt and ground pepper. Later during that time, a more delicious recipe was developed: after deep-fried, mix the locusts with chopped lemon grass to give it aroma, chopped hot pepper of any kind, add generous amount of salt. Then squeeze some liberal amount of lime or lemon juice as a final touch. Deep fried locusts with this recipe is simply tasty, delicious, and very nutritious. The local demand for deep-fried locusts dish was, and still is, very popular now. It may be hard to believe but the locust swarms were gone in no time since, like your article pointed out here, it is easy to catch the locusts at night. It may be disgusting to think about eating fried insects but fried insects are now very popular street foods in Thailand for Thais as well as global tourists and the Thais now have to import insects like locusts and crickets from our neighboring countries. See following Youtubes.
Locust Eating, Bangkok
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XiNaWD5ucA
Taste Test of all the Bugs at a Thailand Market
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy5pBI8WvK8

Thank you all for sharing highly encouraging remarks, ideas and further information on the subject. Specially, the Thailand story is very encouraging as as did my Ph.D from AIT, Thailand and stayed there for over three years, did saw locust frying and selling in front of future park and other streets and myself and my wife would see it strangely that Thia are a;so eating locust but frying it like Pakora in Pakistan. I did not knew at that time that I may at one time in future innovate this and catch locust as poultry meal. Now I got more insight and we must not contaminate this precious high value proteins rich insect by spraying it with lethal chemicals which was my sole idea to protect the ecosystem from chemical pollution. Hope to further improve this intervention as I am still working with five countries in Horn of Africa as Advisor in converting loust into meal after catching thenm in night time.

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