Guatemala City/Prensa Latina
The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food (MAGA) today fumigates areas of Guatemala with the presence of the Central American locust, a pest that impacts fields from southern Mexico to Nicaragua.
The person in charge of the Plant Health Directorate of that portfolio, Jorge Gómez, ruled out an outbreak “out of the ordinary” in the country and assured that given the alert on October 9, they are constantly monitoring.
We fumigated in the places where we detected the pest, he expanded, while mentioning the Las Víboras volcano, located in the department of Jutiapa, as those of greatest interest; and in Petén.
The MAGA official considered that the Central American lobster populations in Guatemala are low and that in those found they are taking action to prevent an increase.
He explained that there are two types in the nation, a variety that causes damage; and another called Tropidacris dux, which is regularly present in forests, without damage.
In Honduras there is a severe Central American locust outbreak, Gómez noted, quoted by the local newspaper Prensa Libre.
He pointed out that droughts in the neighboring territory contributed to the explosion of the ancient plague (for centuries it devastated the region’s crops).
They can attack basic grains and affect more than 400 species of plants, according to statements from the International Organization for Agricultural Health, based in El Salvador.
In the alert issued days ago, this entity urged farmers, governments and ministries of Agriculture to prepare with biological and agroecological tools.
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