OUDTSHOORN NEWS - On Monday 14 March, large swarms of locusts descended onto the Klein Karoo region. 

Reports of locust swarms around the Calitzdorp area was received by the Garden Route District Municipality Disaster Management Centre (GRDM DMC) on Monday, 15 March. 

Later, it was confirmed that farmers in Kruisvallei and Buffelskloof were seeing swarms of locusts flying from west to east along the foothills of the Swartberg mountains.

Over the past year, the increase of locust activity has become apparent, which resulted in the Department of Agriculture conducting several pesticide spraying actions in the Northern- as well as the Eastern Cape and the Central Karoo. 

However, historically these locust plagues were confined to the Northern parts of the Western Cape as well as the  Central Karoo district.  

Therefore, most pro-active Department Locust Officers (DLO’s) training was done in the Central Karoo District Municipal area.

The mandate to deal with locusts lies with the National Department of Agriculture due to locusts being a migratory pest.

Read more on  Garden Route District Municipality

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