Statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture indicate that so far migratory locusts have infested over 1 million hectares of waste land with low vegetation cover where the locusts breed in more than 160 counties in 10 provinces, autonomous regions and in Tianjin Municipality.

In addition, native locusts, which are far less destructive than migratory ones, have infested 6.7 million hectares of land.

The locust density averages 50 to 500 per square metre.

The worst-hit regions are situated along the Yellow River and Bohai Sea, in parts of South China's Hainan Province and Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, where the density has hit a surprising 3,000 to 10,000 per square metre.

Usually, when the density is 1 per square metre, measures need to be taken to prevent further harm to agriculture.

Even in some regions where locusts seldom appear, such as Huludao, in Northeast China's Liaoning Province, the pests have appeared in large numbers.

Specialized plague control teams have sprayed insecticide over about 250,000 hectares of waste land and will spray another 600,000 hectares within the coming month.

Starting from last Tuesday, nine crop-dusting planes have also been used to kill the pests in 200,000 hectares of land in North China's Hebei Province and Tianjin Municipality, East China's Shandong Province and Central China's Henan Province.

Weather permitting, this summer's locust plague should be brought under control by early July.

To make matters worse, Asian migratory locusts from Kazakhstan have invaded Xinjiang, aggravating the locust plague in the area.

The plague is mainly caused by a chronic dry spell.

Over the past three months, continuous drought has been haunting over 20 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions and provides a good environment for the breeding of migratory locusts, which usually lay their eggs on saline-alkali waste land.

Currently these developing locusts, called hoppers because they have not yet grown wings, live on reeds and pose no harm to crops.

But in just two to three weeks they will be fully grown, complete with wings, when they will fly to fields and devour wheat and rice, giving the country's agriculture a destructive blow.

When they reach that stage it is almost impossible to effectively control them.

But the chance of this taking place is slight.

The central government and agricultural authorities at local levels are taking the locust threat very seriously.

Liu Jian, vice-minister of agriculture, made an inspection tour of Anxin, a county in North China's Hebei Province, one of the worst-hit regions.

"Every effort should be made to guarantee that migratory locusts do not develop their wings," Liu said.

According to Zhu Enlin, division director of the ministry's Agro-Technical Extension Centre, so far the Ministry of Finance has put aside 27 million yuan (US$3.26 million) for the battle against the locusts, and another 40 million yuan (US$4.8 million) will be poured in soon.

However, the locusts are not likely to be eradicated for several years if drought continues to haunt China, and locust control will be a long-term task.

(China Daily 06/18/2001)