- Agriculture Minister has told Parliament that recently, there has been an incursion of desert locusts in Rajasthan and Gujarat from areas bordering Pakistan.
- Locusts are large herbivorous insects that can be serious pests of agriculture due to their ability to form dense and highly mobile swarms. They are species of short-horned grasshoppers.
- India has a Locust Control and Research scheme responsible for control of desert locusts.
- It is implemented through the Locust Warning Organisation (LWO). LWO, based in Jodhpur, was established in 1939.
- LWO was later amalgamated with the Directorate of Plant Protection Quarantine and Storage in 1946.
- LWO is responsible to monitor and control the locust situation in Scheduled Desert Area (SDA) mainly in the States of Rajasthan and Gujarat by way of intensive survey, surveillance, monitoring and control operations.
