China now offers solution to locusts menace
China is preparing to deploy 100,000 ducks to neighbouring Pakistan to help tackle swarms of crop-eating locusts.
Chinese agricultural experts say a single duck can eat more than 200 locusts a day and be more effective than pesticides. Pakistan declared an emergency earlier this month saying locust numbers were the worst in more than two decades.
Millions of the insects have also been devastating crops in parts of East Africa. The Chinese government announced this week it was sending a team of experts of Pakistan to develop “targeted programmes” against the locusts.
Lu Lizhi, a senior researcher with the Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, described the ducks as “biological weapons”. “Ducks like to stay in a group so they are easier to manage than chickens,” he said. -BBC
