Iran, FAO agree to jointly fight desert locust

Iranian Agriculture Ministry’s Plant Protection Organization
and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) have
agreed to join hands and address locust swarm infestations that devour crops
and threaten the livelihood and sustenance in the region.

During a meeting with the FAO officials on the sidelines of
the 17th session of the Commission on Phytosanitary Measures (CPM) of the
International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) in Italy, Hossein Ranjbar
Aghdam, the head of Iran Plant Protection Organization, voiced the country’s
readiness to carry out joint actions with the FAO to help control any breakout
in the region and fight locusts.

The desert locust is considered the most destructive
migratory pest in the world and a single swarm covering one square kilometer
can contain up to 80 million locusts

. A desert locust can eat roughly its weight in fresh food
per day (about two grams). A one square kilometer swarm contains at least 40
million locusts, each eats the same amount of food each day as about 35,000
people, based on a person eating an average of 2.3 kilograms of food per day.
Locusts can lay as many as 80 eggs per female, and deposit them at a depth of
10 to 15 centimeters below the earth’s surface.

Maryam Jalili Moghadam, the manager of the Organization’s
Plant Quarantine Standards Codification, was also present in the meeting.

In separate meetings with her FAO counterparts, the two
sides agreed to jointly implement TCP projects which assist in solving
technical problems in crop production, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture,
forestry, nutrition, food safety, rural development and other areas identified
by the country concerned.