The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries has notified citizens, livestock breeders and beekeepers about the beginning of spray operations to control desert locusts in the villages of Al Amerat and Qurayat where these insects are widespread.
In the past weeks, the ministry held extensive meetings to discuss the situation in the Sultanate, which is usually handled by conducting continuous surveys by specialised teams in different governorates in coordination with the Locust Control Unit.
Accordingly, spraying operations to control the spread of locusts took place in South Al Sharqiyah and Al Wusta governorates recently, where control teams surveyed an area of 92,000 hectares in both governorates, and sprayed 286 litres of pesticide.
In Haima, spraying operations covered an area of 17 hectares out of the surveyed area 100,000 hectares. Also, operations to control locusts were carried out in the villages of Marate’a, Sirab, Shital, Gloot and the neighbouring areas where four teams surveyed the area.
It is worth noting that the Sultanate is internationally classified as one of the transit areas for desert locust, depending on the climate suitable for locusts breeding. The Sultanate has been subjected to fierce attacks by desert locust swarms during the past years.
The last major locust swarm in 2014 was tackled by the ministry, which limited the damage to crops and pastures. At that time, locust
control was carried out in an area of about 7,000 hectares.
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