Argentina and Brazil are following the movement of a 15-square-kilometer swarm of locusts in northeastern Argentina, the government and experts so far have stated that it has not caused significant damage to crops in South American countries.
Argentine food protection firm SENASA said the swarm, which entered Argentina from Paraguay last May, contained about 40 million insects. It is in the province of Corrientes, near the borders with Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay.
Argentina and Brazil are the world’s largest exporters of soybeans and maize.
“We are following the motion of the plague,” SENASA coordinator Héctor Medina told Reuters on Thursday. Due to the arrival of a bloodless front from the south, the movement of the lobster would be in the coming days, he added.
Low temperatures “will save them from moving and reproducing.” Lethargy helps keep them still, ” said Medina. Winds can eventually push the lobster cloud into a neighboring country,” he added.
Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture is also tracking the swarm and has asked farmers in the south of the country to be on alert, concluded that the locust cloud is unlikely to move into Brazilian territory right now.
However, Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina Dias declared Thursday an “emergency of aptitude for plants” in the swarm states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina.
In Argentina, SENASA and the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange expressed less fear about the swarm of locusts than the drought affecting crops.
“Right now (the swarm) is not a challenge, we are more involved with the moisture challenge for wheat seedlings than with locusts,” said Esteban Copati, head of agricultural estimates in inventory exchange, who added that the swarm moves over marginal agricultural areas.
Pests have raised considerations in Brazil. A representative of the Association of Aprosoja Producers in Rio Grande do Sul said they feared that locusts would enter the state where maize was still harvested and wheat was grown.
Eugenio Hack, of the Copercampos cooperative in Santa Catarina, told Reuters that if locusts moved to the state, manufacturers would be trained to use the right chemicals, which are other commonly used.