The provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has declared anti-locust emergency in seven high risk district of the province and deployed 55 teams for around the clock surveillance and control of locust in these areas. However, no damage has been reported to crops by locust anywhere in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

24 different camps have also been established in the high risk areas, maximum possible number of human resource and logistics deployed and so far an affected area of 11,754 hector has been declared.

This was revealed in a briefing given by the provincial government to Prime Minister Imran Khan regarding the steps taken so far for the effective surveillance and control of locust in the province.

Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mahmood Khan along with his team attended the briefing through video conferencing. It was told that the provincial government has put in place its Locust Surveillance and Control strategy well in time, approved an emergency fund of Rs 50 million and has launched a mass scale awareness campaign for educating the local farmers.

Seven districts including D.I Khan, Lakki Marwat, South Waziristan, North Waziristan, Tank, Orakzai and Kurram have been declared as high risk areas and a total area of 8843 hector is constantly being kept under surveillance. "So far 114 spray operations have been conducted in the affected areas"; the forum was briefed and added that the Agriculture Department has developed an android based application to facilitate and educate the local population to control the spread of locust.

It was also informed that the provincial government was working in close coordination with the relevant federal entities and other bordering provinces to effectively control the locust outbreak.