THE OTHER PLAGUE

Locusts have returned to India in just two months and are spreading to new territories. Has climate change added another layer of stress and uncertainty?

- ISHAN KUKRETI, AKSHIT SANGOMLA, SHAGUN KAPIL, MEENAKSHI SUSHMA AND VIBHA VARSHNEY

IT’S MAY 27. A few minutes past 11 am. Down To Earth reporters had just arrived in Pachgaon village, Dholpur district, Rajasthan, to enquire about desert locusts that are crossing over to India way ahead of the monsoon rain and invading new areas. As if on cue, a huge swarm, resembling a long rust-colored low cloud, appeared from nowhere. It quickly swelled forward, taking over the sky and nearly obliterating the desert sun. Bewildered, the residents ran out of their homes and gathered in the open. But before they could get a grasp on the situation, millions of locusts started falling like hail and clung to everything that looked green. Within no minutes, the trees and bushes turned into ragged mounds of glistening brown. Some leaned over to touch the ground—tropical grasshoppers weigh about 2-2.5 gram. A few youngsters took photographs as the others stood motionless.

It was for the first time the residents had seen something like this. Soon the severity of the situation dawned on them. Some residents fetched their utensils and started beating and banging them. Ram Babu, a farmworker in his 60s, rushed to his farm to scare away the pests with a piece of cloth. He repeated the exercise for almost an hour in the 46 o Cheat. “I saw on the news yesterday about locust attacks in Jaipur, but did not think they would attack our village too,” he said, trying to call the landowner to inform him about the attack.

The nervous clamour of people did not let the swarm stay in the village for more than 40 minutes. But during that short period, Babu lost almost one-fourth of his pumpkin crop planted on 3.5 bigha (0.3 ha) land. Peepul, babool and keekar (Prosopis juliflora) trees looked queer with almost bare branches and punctured leaves.