Agriculture Ministry: Weather Conditions Opposes the Entry of Locusts into Syrian Territory

Damascus – The Ministry of Agriculture has decided to take appropriate measures and equip the means of control to deal with any potential for the arrival of desert locusts to the country, stressing that the weather conditions are contrary to the entry into Syrian territory.

“The ministry has set up a special operations room to monitor the movement of locust swarms in the region and is coordinating with the Desert Locust Commission in the Central Region of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO),” the ministry’s director of plant protection Fahr al-Mishref said in a statement.

Mr. al Mishref added that “the ministry has taken the necessary measures for every newly development and has equipped the control instruments of tractors, mechanisms and pesticides to fight 40, 000 hectares,” adding that “until this moment the desert locusts have not entered the Syrian territory because the weather conditions are relatively cold, and the wind that is in opposition to the movement of the swarms limit its progress.”

The supervisor pointed out that there are two types of locusts, the first gathers in large swarms of “every swarm consists of 30 to 50 million locust”, it is cross-border kind that sweeps lands and fields and the damage is severe and the second is isolated and individual, which is small grasshoppers and spread locally in the fields and of limited risk.

Syria has not been exposed to the invasion of locust swarms affecting plantations and vegetation since 1964.

Sh. Kh.