Swarms of lo­custs have de­scend­ed on agri­cul­tur­al es­tates and forests in the south­west penin­su­la, rav­aging crops and veg­e­ta­tion.

Worst hit ar­eas in­clude Bowen Trace, Chatham and Austin South Trace, Ce­dros.

The in­sects have been chomp­ing down veg­e­ta­tion on the pe­riph­ery of the forests. Ba­nana and co­conut trees were laden with the in­sects while the walls of res­i­dents' homes were al­so cov­ered.

Farmer Jhit Bhimul said the lo­custs were still young and if left un­at­tend­ed will com­plete­ly dev­as­tate the fields.

"In 2014, we had a ma­jor in­fes­ta­tion and we lost a lot of crops. We want the Min­istry to in­ves­ti­gate and erad­i­cate these lo­custs now be­fore they be­gin to ma­ture and mul­ti­ply," Bhimul said.

A source said teams from the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture vis­it­ed the Bowen Trace area and took pho­tographs of the pests.

A re­port was be­ing pre­pared to be sent to se­nior of­fi­cials. How­ev­er, the source said the lone crop duster trac­tor sta­tioned in Ce­dros was not func­tion­al so ac­tu­al spray­ing could not be done.

"It will cost $14,000 to make the trac­tor func­tion­al but the Min­istry has not giv­en any al­lo­ca­tion to fix the equip­ment. It means we can­not do any spray­ing," the source added.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, coun­cil­lor for Ce­dros Shankar Teelucks­ingh said he was dis­ap­point­ed that the Min­istry had no equip­ment to erad­i­cate the lo­custs.

"I am call­ing on the Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture to act im­me­di­ate­ly and ex­e­cute re­pairs to the equip­ment be­cause if the Min­istry does not act now, these lo­custs will threat­en food se­cu­ri­ty in the penin­su­la," Teel­cuks­ingh said. He added that dozens of farm­ers have been cul­ti­vat­ing fields of wa­ter­mel­on, pump­kin, cas­sa­va and oth­er crops.

"If these lo­custs reach the age to mul­ti­ply, we will have a re­al prob­lem on our hands. We need to get this prob­lem un­der con­trol im­me­di­ate­ly," Teelucks­ingh added.

The lo­custs are dif­fer­ent from those seen in Pe­nal and Moru­ga ear­li­er this year. It ap­pears the species in Bowen Trace and Chatham are big­ger in size and less de­struc­tive than the Moru­ga lo­custs.

Last month swarms of lo­custs were re­port­ed to have gob­bled up crops from agri­cul­tur­al es­tates at Mendez Vil­lage, Pe­nal and Bun­see Trace, Pe­nal Rock Road.

Res­i­dent Hem­raj See­lal said the lo­custs have been feed­ing off trees in the forests since Jan­u­ary but be­gan de­stroy­ing fields of peas, cas­sa­va, ochroes and bo­di with­in a four-week pe­ri­od.

Farmer Raithraj Sook­nanan said swarms of lo­custs have hatched in the Pe­nal forests and were gob­bling acres of veg­e­ta­tion. The Min­istry lat­er em­barked on sev­er­al days of spray­ing to erad­i­cate the pests. Fol­low­ing these re­ports the Min­istry said it was ac­tive­ly mon­i­tor­ing lo­custs in­fes­ta­tions at Pi­paro, St Mary’s, Tabaquite, Mayo, New Grant, Princes Town, Man­ta­cool, Ta­ble­land, Pe­nal Rock Road, Tor­tu­ga, Mamoral, Bar­rack­pore, Moru­ga, Es­mer­al­da, Ca­paro, Williamsville, Gran Cou­va, Cachipe, In­di­an Trail, Ed­ward Trace and Watts Road.

Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture Clarence Ramb­harat did not re­spond to calls to his cel­lu­lar phone on Thurs­day.