What does the locust swarm that could reach Brazil have to do with agribusiness?

Brasil de Fato - As if that wasn't enough drought and pandemicFarmers in the western border region of Rio Grande do Sul are now concerned about an approaching swarm of locusts that is attacking crops in northern Argentina. The Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock and Rural Development (Seapdr) and the Ministry of Agriculture are monitoring the insects' advance.

On Wednesday (24), the locusts were in the Santa Fé region, 250 kilometers from the border with Rio Grande do Sul. The alert to Brazilian authorities was made by the National Service for Agrifood Health and Quality of Argentina (Senasa). 

“It’s a relatively short distance. If this cloud persists and the weather conditions are favorable for the pest to enter the state, it could affect some crops and pastures as well,” says agricultural inspector Ricardo Felicetti, head of the Plant Health Defense Division of Seapdr. 

Argentine media reports indicate that the locust swarm originated in Paraguay and the provinces of Formosa and Chaco, where cassava, corn, and sugarcane are produced. Its movement is influenced by wind direction and high temperatures.

Flávio Varone, a meteorologist from Seapdr, analyzed the current weather conditions to assess the risks of these insects reaching Rio Grande do Sul. 

"The approach of a cold front from the South will intensify the North and Northwest winds, potentially increasing the movement of the mass to the Western Border, Missões and Middle and Upper Uruguay River Valley. However, the trend of falling temperatures and the forecast of rain for the entire state this Thursday (24) tends to mitigate the risk of the pest spreading," he details.

Monocultures and imbalance

Leonardo Melgarejo, director of the Brazilian Association of Agroecology, explains that the phenomenon is an expression of ecological imbalance that favors this large population of insects, associated with the disappearance of so-called "natural controls," with the extinction or drastic reduction of populations of birds, spiders, and small rodents, such as the mulita and guinea pigs.

The habitat of these animals is giving way to increasingly extensive agribusiness projects. "Everyone eats grasshoppers, and all of this is disappearing with the advance of soy and other extensive monocultures. The use of pesticides that attack some crops also kills the predators of these insects," he argues.

As part of the same process of environmental degradation, climate change also contributes to the overpopulation of locusts by generating a sequence of dry summers and autumns, and increasingly less cold winters. This undermines the so-called "control periods," adds the agricultural engineer.

“During this period we are approaching, they would be reproducing and being controlled by the cold. But, at the same time, since the summer and autumn were dry, they are moving to places where they have the possibility to develop, and we are in their path,” Melgarejo points out.

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The environmentalist recalled that a situation like this already occurred in the 1930s in Bolivia, Argentina, and Uruguay. In Argentina, in 1932, 150 million hectares were invaded by mass migrations of these insects.

“These insects have a very interesting characteristic. Their behavior is individual, but when conditions become favorable for large-scale reproduction, they alter their behavior, and their hormones modify the size and strength of their wings so that the population migrates to another place where food can be found to sustain that large mass of individuals. And they can have up to two or three cycles per year. They migrate en masse, and in these migrations, they can make flights of up to 150 kilometers per day.”

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Danger to bees and other pollinators

Another environmental concern pointed out by Melgarejo is that, if the locust swarm reaches Brazil, the fight against it will involve the intensive use of insecticides that could wipe out bees and other animals. “The control has been done with poison, lots of poison. The poisons used in the last crisis were Fipronil, Cypermethrin, Thiamethoxam; all of these are poisons that we have associated with bee mortality. So the situation is alarming,” he warned.

"We have to hope that the technicians in Argentina manage to control and contain this swarm of locusts there, because if it arrives here in Brazil, we will possibly use the same strategy: spraying and poisons that kill bees. Our Argentinian colleagues are doing a good job controlling the social organization..." face the covid-19 pandemic And we hope they will also do a good job of biological control against this locust plague.”

Source: BdF Rio Grande do Sul