Still Attacked By Kumbara Grasshoppers, Communities In 2 Villages In Southwest Sumba, NTT Declare War

Illustration-Grasshopper Pests (Photo: ANTARA/HO)

JAKARTA - The government of Southwest Sumba (SBD) Regency, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) is still trying to eradicate the kumbara locust pest. As of last Sunday, August 1st, pests were still attacking a number of villages in the district.

"It was still there until yesterday. Yesterday I had the opportunity to directly inspect the location where the kumbara locust was infested," said West Sumba deputy regent Dya Marthen Christian Taka when contacted from Kupang, Antara, Monday, August 2.

This was conveyed in connection with the development of the kumbara locust attack in Southwest Sumba Regency, which since the beginning of July has attacked two villages in the East Wewewa District, namely Tema village and Pada village.

Christian said that the local government had tried to eradicate a number of locust pests by spraying pesticides so that the locusts left the area.

The process of spraying locust pests is not only carried out by officers from the agriculture department, but he also said that he involved people whose villages were attacked by the locust pests.

Christian admits that his party will try hard to eradicate the pest so it doesn't spread to other villages in the district.

"We are determined to declare war on this locust pest. We don't want the kumbara locust to spread to other villages in this district," he said.

Moreover, he added, it was feared that the locust pest would attack the farmers' crops, which of course would lead to crop failure losses.

Furthermore, he said, from the results of his observations at the location of the locust attack, it was known that it occurred in an area where the terrain was quite heavy.

Meanwhile, the Head of the Southwest Sumba Regency Agriculture Service, Rofinus Kaleka, said that thanks to the cooperation between the government and the community to eradicate the pest, now slowly a number of kumbara locusts are starting to leave the two villages.

"But it turned out that yesterday there were still in the two villages. We will do our best to eradicate these pests," he said.