Locust, a kind of migratory grasshopper traveling in vast plains and hilly areas in northern, northwestern and northeastern China, destroying huge tracts of autumn-harvested corn and wheat crops. They have brought great losses to agribusiness in Hebei and Shandong provinces and Tianjin municipality in recent years.

Heavily attacked by locusts during the past four years, particularly in these three regions, China has turned to aircraft to deal with the troublesome insects, said sources with the Hebei Provincial Agricultural Department.

However, lack of special airports makes the use of aircraft expensive and inefficient. Aircraft were only able to help control locusts in approximately 30,000 out of 600,000 affected hectares in Hebei last year.

The new airport in Hebei, once completed, will be able to control locusts in an area of over 200,000 hectares in the province and also in adjacent Tianjin municipality and part of Shandong province.

With a total investment of more than 36 million yuan (US$4.3 million), the three locust airports will be able to cover an area of one million hectares.

(Xinhua News Agency December 12, 2002)