Swarms of desert locusts have infested areas of upper and south Punjab for which Prime Minister Imran Khan has declared a national emergency as the swarms, believed to have come from Iran in June and have ravaged cotton, wheat, maize, and several other crops.
A favourable weather and delayed response have reportedly helped them breed and attack crop areas.
The locust swarms are currently on the Pakistan-India border and were previously in Sindh and Balochistan. Their potential for large-scale destruction is raising fears of food insecurity, according to news reports.
“We are facing the worst locust infestation in more than two decades and have decided to declare a national emergency to deal with the threat,” Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan said.
The government will take all possible steps and provide required facilities to protect crops from any possible danger, Khan said. The last time Pakistan saw a serious locust threat was in 1993.
