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Interviews | Hari Sharma, agricultural scientist formerly associated with the International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), interviewed by Kunal Shankar (TheWire.in)
Hari Sharma, agricultural scientist formerly associated with the International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), interviewed by Kunal Shankar (TheWire.in)

Hari Sharma, agricultural scientist formerly associated with the International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), interviewed by Kunal Shankar (TheWire.in)

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published Published on Jun 8, 2020   modified Modified on Jun 10, 2020

-TheWire.in

In an interview for The Wire, the former ICRISAT scientist says the damage could have been contained if the government had acted promptly to warnings.

The desert locust is a deadly agricultural pest that has been on a feeding spree across North Africa, West Asia and South Asia. Lore and mentions of locust swarms exist in the Mahabharata, the Bible and the Quran. But it has been largely absent from the collective memory of urban societies until recently, when locust swarms were found in New Delhi and Jaipur.

Hari Sharma, a globally renowned agricultural scientist formerly associated with the International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), says South Asia could have prevented the debilitating locust infestation if India and Pakistan had heeded warnings sent as early as February this year from the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation.

In this interview for The Wire with Kunal Shankar, Sharma discusses the issue of locusts and whether climate change has altered the agricultural pests’ behaviours, leading to more virulent attacks. Edited excerpts follow.

* Dr Sharma, thank you for speaking to The Wire. Let me begin with a basic question – what exactly are locusts? And are they seasonal?

Locusts are insects. We could call them grasshoppers. Generally, in the grasslands, they live a solitary life, not in groups. But when the population density is high, they secrete a pheromone to communicate with each other to assume what is called a gregarious phase, which means they become aggressive. That is when they form swarms and begin looking for high-density food areas.

Their pheromonal communication informs them of wind patterns as it determines rainfall, which means more vegetation. They move with the winds and follow a definite cycle from the Saharan desert in North Africa, into East Africa – Ethiopia, Kenya, Eritrea and parts of Chad. They then move to the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. When they finish the food there, they move over to Pakistan and India. Then, they will also go back to their initial habitats.

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Image Courtesy: National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, http://naasindia.org/detail.php?id=454


TheWire.in, 8 June, 2020, https://thewire.in/agriculture/locust-infestation-climate-change-hari-sharma-icrisat-interview


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