The hop­pers which hatched in the forests of Mo­ra last No­vem­ber have grown in­to ful­ly-fledged lo­custs and are now at­tack­ing agri­cul­tur­al es­tates in the south­west­ern penin­su­la.

Teams are now strug­gling to deal with the pests and res­i­dents say swarms are en­ter­ing their yards and hous­es.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the scene, thou­sands of lo­custs were seen fly­ing in the air. The sounds of their wings could be heard if you lis­tened care­ful­ly. The trunks of the trees were spat­tered with the in­sects.

Since Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed on the ac­tiv­i­ties of the in­sects a few weeks ago, the swarms have ex­tend­ed out of Bowen Trace to­wards Chatham Beach Road, Ceme­tery Road, Kow­lessar Trace, Ash­ford Trace and Carl­yse Road.

The Lo­cust Unit which tracks the swarms an­nu­al­ly has been hard pressed to kill the pests be­cause the trac­tor used for spray­ing re­mains down. 

Robert Reyes who owns 50 acres of lands at Chatham said the in­fes­ta­tion of in­sects had de­stroyed fields of short crops in­clud­ing patchoi, let­tuce, sweet pep­pers.

He said the on­ly crops saved were root crops like cas­sa­va, gin­ger and yam.

An­oth­er farmer Shel­don Khan said usu­al­ly the spray­ing of the St Patrick area is done us­ing a wheel trac­tor.

"The spray­ing is done be­fore the lo­custs start to fly but since the wheel trac­tor went down they have not been able to cov­er all the ar­eas. That is why we are suf­fer­ing like this now, " Khan said.

He called on the Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture Clarence Ramb­harat to pro­vide the nec­es­sary equip­ment to deal with the pests.

Coun­cil­lor for Ce­dros Shankar Teelucks­ingh in an in­ter­view said it would cost $14,000 to fix the trac­tor. He said the trac­tor was sup­posed to be fixed weeks ago. 

"Over the past few weeks, farm­ers have com­plained about the larg­er in­fes­ta­tion of lo­custs on their farms and loss­es to their crops. There has been no re­dress from the Agri­cul­ture to Min­istry to deal with lo­custs," Teelucks­ingh said.

He added, "There are three mist blow­ers be­ing used and it is not mak­ing much im­pact on the vol­ume of lo­custs. "

Teelucks­ingh said pre­vi­ous­ly St Patrick West had two wheel trac­tors but one was re­moved some years.

"That trac­tor is now bro­ken down be­cause of a failed clutch sys­tem and it will cost $14,000 to fix.

"We al­so need staffing. The con­tracts of ca­su­al work­ers are not be­ing re­newed and this has caused some strain. The Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture has to in­ter­vene, " Teelucks­ingh added.

Guardian Me­dia will bring you more as this sto­ry un­folds.