Provinces - Sana
The monitoring and investigation teams of the directorates of agriculture in all governorates continue their work in combating groups of desert locusts that entered Syria 10 days ago.
In Damascus, the presence of locust groups has not been reported in any area yet, and that control teams are continuing their work around the clock and are ready to intervene in the event of any groups, according to the Director of Prevention at the Ministry of Agriculture, Iyad Muhammad, in his statement to the SANA delegate, indicating that the total area that has been combated In the capital, it reached 400 dunums in one day, and that control supplies will be available in areas where locusts appear as quickly as necessary.
In the countryside of Damascus, the director of its agriculture, Eng. Irfan Ziadeh, reported that the Rural Agriculture Directorate was informed today of the presence of small scattered groups of locusts in the towns of Hejira, Yalda and Bebela, and that in cooperation between the directorate, the agricultural associations and administrative units in these towns, 100 dunums were combated.
Ziada pointed out that the total area that was fought in the countryside to date has reached about 1,600 dunums.
In Daraa, the Agriculture Directorate announced that it had not reported, since yesterday noon, that any new desert locust swarms had been detected in the governorate.
The Director of Agriculture, Engineer Abdel-Fattah Al-Rahal stated that the monitoring and investigation teams did not notice the presence of locusts in the areas that the swarms entered during the past days, nor did the Directorate report by citizens of any locust sightings, explaining that the directorate yesterday ended the fight against the areas that the locusts reached in the eastern countryside, where the areas reached 4,700 dunams of land were fought.
In As-Suwayda, the Directorate of Agriculture today, in cooperation with the local community, struggled with desert locust groups in 4 new sites after monitoring them yesterday evening. The assistant director of agriculture, Eng. Alaa Shuhayb, stated that the control included, from the early morning hours, sites in the villages of Al-Kars, Malah and Al-Tha`la, and in the west of the city of As-Suwayda, with a total area of about 890 dunums. Without registering any damages.
And as a result of the low temperatures yesterday evening, the locust groups settled in the aforementioned sites in specific places with difficulty flying, which facilitated their control operations, explaining that the monitoring teams in the directorate continue to monitor the movement of locusts according to the wind movement and weather conditions in order to deal with the groups that appear in the appropriate time with the provision of the necessary medicines and tractors. Control operations.
In Homs, the Directorate of Agriculture continues to monitor the movement of desert locusts in the governorate and work to combat them.
The Director of Agriculture, Eng. Nazih Al-Rifai, confirmed that this morning, the operation room in the directorate was informed of the presence of a group of locusts in the village of Al-Aboudieh, and immediately a group of technicians and workers went with equipment, sprinklers and pesticides to the village, and in cooperation with farmers, 30 dunums of forested land were combated and the same in fields and the locusts were eradicated. The need to inform the Directorate in the event of noticing the presence of locusts by calling the designated numbers.
In Hama, the General Authority for Forest Management and Development fought an area of about 3 thousand hectares planted with agricultural crops, in which the local locust pest, or what is known as hoppers, was detected.
The Director of Plant Wealth at the Authority, Eng. Wafiq Zarrouf, explained that the areas in which control work was concentrated included the sections of Shatah, Ayn al-Krum, Salhab, Karnaz, and Mahrada, and that the control operations were carried out through insecticides designated for this pest.
He pointed out that the locusts were well controlled and that once they were informed by the farmers, a team would be sent to investigate the extent of the damage to this pest and the extent to which it reached the economic threshold with the aim of immediate intervention.