Brazil created and prevented a real aerial squadron, formed by at least 426 agricultural planes, to face the unexpected and frightening threat of a super cloud that is estimated to have approximately 400 million locusts approaching the south of the country. Theremensa cloud with the plague, which destroys crops wherever it goes, is standing over the province of Corrientes, in Argentina, about 130 km from the border with the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul.
As grasshoppers can travel up to 150 km in a single day, the health authorities of Rio Grande do Sul and the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture are on full alert and have already started to take measures to, if the threat materializes, face them immediately. One of the first was to make an agreement with the National Union of Agricultural Pilots, which made 426 agricultural aircraft available in the state of Rio Grande do Sul available, and which could be reinforced by hundreds of similar aircraft sent from other regions of Brazil if it is required.
The idea is to spray the giant cloud of insects with a mixture capable of destroying it, if not in its entirety, at least in part, minimizing the damage to the state’s crops, an essentially agricultural region. This plan, which at first appears to be the most suitable and has already been used even by the UN to combat pests in Africa, is being studied in detail, in order to define the most effective insecticides but, at the same time, to prevent spraying of the locust cloud with pesticides could result in health problems for people living on the properties in the region.
An unexpected cold front that emerged this Friday in the south of Brazil, with heavy rains and falling temperatures, two things that locusts do not like, made the immense cloud of insects retain its march towards Brazilian territory, maintaining itself temporarily on the border between the Argentine provinces of Corrientes and Entre Rios. But Brazil keeps full alert and all means of combating the warning pest, as at the beginning of next week dry weather and heat return, which can make the locust cloud resume its trajectory, which can reach so much. Brazil and Uruguay, which at that end of the Brazilian territory come together.
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