Agriculture MEC in the Northern Cape Mase Manopule has warned farmers and organisations that there is an outbreak of locusts at the Pixley Ka Seme District Municipalities, which includes towns such as De Aar, Hanover, Britstown, Noupoort and Prieska.
Swarms of brown locusts return to the Karoo area:
This comes as parts of Africa, including Somalia and Kenya, battle massive swarms of the insects, which have been devouring crops.
She says that the swarms of locusts are moving away from the breeding areas and might move to other areas in the province.
“There’s an outbreak of locusts in some parts of our province, in particular districts Pixley Ka Seme. And further warn our communities that the swarms are moving away, which will result in more districts getting affected. We want to urge our farmers and farmers’ organisations to alert the department whenever they spot locusts. And I want to reassure our communities that so far, control measures are being implemented to restrain the spread of the locusts.”
On Friday, the Free State Department of Agriculture said it’s doing its utmost to curb the spread of the locust outbreak.
Provincial Agriculture HOD Takisi Masiteng said they are working with the national department to curb the spread.
“We are working together with the national department to assist us to curb this spread of the locust. There are places that are seriously affected like Rouxwille, but they managed to spray. Phillipolis is also one of the areas, but we are working closely, the teams are there. Every day they will be with us, but areas that are badly affected are in the Xhariep district.”
