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TEHRAN – The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) delivered the fourth shipment of equipment to the Plant Protection Organization of Iran to support locust control operations in the country.
According to a press release issued by the FAO Representation in Iran, this shipment includes 28 units of vehicle-mounted ultra-low volume (ULV) sprayers, worth around $ 81,000.
Funded by the Government of China, this delivery is part of the FAO-China South-South Cooperation Program to Support FAO’s Global Action Project for the Control of the Desert Locust, which aims to curb the spread of the locust of the desert in the focus countries by sharing modern technologies, applying effective techniques and proven solutions to control locusts in the five countries of Pakistan, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Iran.
Along with the three previous shipments, FAO has so far provided 110 ULV sprayers and 10.4 metric tons of ULV Deltamethrin pesticides, in excess of $ 305,000, to support national capacity.
FAO is also implementing an Emergency Technical Cooperation Program project in the country to help the Plant Protection Organization combat this migratory pest by providing the technical knowledge and skills and equipment necessary to detect, track, monitor, report and quickly respond to desert locust plagues in the country.
After the influx of lobsters to the south of the country, this [Iranian calendar] year (as of March 21), a total budget of 200 billion riyals (almost $ 4.7 million at the official rate of 42,000 riyals) has been allocated to combat the swarms of desert locusts.
Latest [Iranian calendar] year (March 21, 2019), desert locusts penetrated Bushehr, Fars, Hormozgan, Kerman, Khuzestan and Sistan-Baluchistan provinces, causing significant losses to more than 500,000 hectares of farmland and gardens.
The FAO explains that desert locust infestations are normally present in southeastern Iran during the spring. Local breeding coincides with seasonal rains that often occur from roughly February or March through April or May. In warmer years, the rains that occur during winter can trigger reproduction in late winter and early spring.
In June, the vegetation is usually dry again and the adults produced during the spring move east towards the summer breeding areas of Indo-Pakistan. Most of the spring breeding occurs along a 450 km stretch of coastal plains in the Arabian Sea from Jask (Hormozgan) and the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman in the west to Chabahar and Gwadar (Sistan- Baluchistan) near the border with Pakistan in the east.
The most important area along the coast is the Vashnum plains near Chabahar. If the rains fall and temperatures are warm, breeding can also occur in the interior, namely the Jaz Murian basin from Kahnuj to Iranshahr, and in the Zaboli, Suran and Saravan valleys leading to Panjgur, Pakistan. Desert locust adults rarely cross mountains north of these areas.
FB / MG
