Cold Front Changes Direction of Locust Cloud Away from Rio Grande do Sul

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The government of Rio Grande do Sul state is monitoring the approaching locust cloud in Argentina to the state’s western border. According to the Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock and Rural Development, by 3:30 PM on Wednesday, June 24th, winds were favoring the influx of insects to the state. With the advancing cold front, the rain changed the direction of the locusts and the cloud is expected to remain in Argentina.

According to Ricardo Felicetti, head of the Rio Grande do Sul Division of Plant Health Defense of the Department of Agriculture, Livestock, and Rural Development, the government monitoring is conducted with continuous exchange of information with Argentina and officials from the Western Border Secretariat.

“We have been in contact with the Argentine Health Service (SENASA), our officials at the border, the EMATER office network, which works on surveillance and contact with producers,” he said.

Juliano Ritter, the secretary’s state inspector, said he’s monitoring the movement daily. “Our job is to check its entry into the state. I monitored areas of pasture near Argentina, horticultural producers, all day yesterday [Wednesday]. The wind, which is what determines their motion, is helping us,” he says.

He reported that he would be monitoring on Thursday afternoon, June 25th. So far, no producer has spotted the insects in the Western Border.

The latest report released by the Argentine government advised that the cloud’s location was inaccurate. “With a cloudy day and lower temperatures, the cloud movement has not yet been recorded,” he says.

State of phytosanitary emergency

On Wednesday, Brazil’s Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina signed an ordinance declaring a state of phytosanitary emergency in the states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina. The document was published early on Thursday, June 25th, in the Federal Gazette (DOU).

The head of the Rio Grande do Sul Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply’s (MAPA), Jairo Carbonari, explains that the ordinance is used to allow emergency actions and to adopt measures more swiftly.

“Following this phytosanitary emergency, protocols should be established and, if required, also allow the use of chemicals and pesticides in controlling the swarm. Products that today would not be allowed, but are possible with the emergency,” he says.

Jairo explains that the use of the products and the way they will be distributed is contingent on several factors. “If it comes, how it comes, which crops it will attack. There is a range of aspects that must be analyzed. Today we can’t say that the control will be aerial, for instance. In other countries, in Argentina, manual application is allowed, as well as ground equipment, tractors, and also airplanes. All this is very relative,” he notes.

Source: G1