Locust plague sweeps across South Sulawesi

Andi Hajramurni, The Jakarta Post, Makassar

Vast swarms of locusts have swept over South Sulawesi in the past few days, destroying rice and secondary crops. The plague has devastated thousands of hectares of crops in Jeneponto, Gowa and Maros regencies. Some farmers were forced to harvest early, causing losses of billions of rupiah.

The hardest hit area was Jeneponto regency, where about 8,000 hectares of rice and secondary crops have been ravaged by the locusts. Some 1,000 hectares of rice and 670 hectares of soybean plantations have been destroyed, while thousands of hectares will suffer a significant drop in harvest volume.

In Gowa and Maros regencies, at least 2,000 hectares of rice had to be harvested prematurely to prevent further losses.

Apart from locusts, snails and rats have also attacked rice crops in neighboring Pinrang regency, where 4,500 hectares were destroyed.

Head of the Jeneponto Food Crops Office, Rachmansyah Guntur, said the locust plague had affected rice and secondary crops in 10 districts, the worst-hit areas being in Tamalatea and Bontorama. Around 1,000 hectares of rice paddy in two districts were totally destroyed, causing losses of around Rp 4 billion.

Nearly all the rice and secondary crops in the Bontoramba district of Jeneponto regency and the Biring Bulu and Bonto Marannu districts of Gowa regency were ruined by the locusts.

Farmers in Bontoramba said that locust plagues had occurred every year for the past three years, but this year's attack was the worst, because they had also ravaged secondary crops like corn, soybean and leguminous plants.

Abdul Karim, a farmer from Lanrea, Bontoramba district, said that he could do nothing on seeing his rice crop being attacked by locusts.

His blossoming rice crop had been completely eaten up by the locusts. The farmer, who owns a three-hectare farm, said he had done everything possible to eradicate the pests, such as spraying various kinds of pesticides, but to no avail. Their numbers had even multiplied.

Rachmansyah also expressed his difficulty in eradicating the pests because they would fly away and move to other locations during spraying.

According to Rachmansyah, the most efficient way to eradicate locusts was by spraying from the air. But this was not easy to do and required specialized equipment, including aircraft.