The coastal parts of Bohai Bay, the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and Hainan Island are bracing themselves for a severe plague of locusts expected to affect up to 800,000 hectares of land in the autumn.

That was according to Zhu Xiuyan, a chief economist with the Ministry of Agriculture, during a national meeting over the weekend in Dongying, East China's Shandong Province, on the control and prevention of locust outbreaks.

"It will be hard to curb the locust outbreak this autumn because bad weather this year, such as too much rain, has provided an ideal environment for the reproduction of locusts," Zhu said.

According to the official, the country is doing all it can to deal with the situation.

Shandong has taken the lead in locust prevention and control.

"We are using advanced technology to get accurate information immediately about locust-hit areas, such as the exact number of pests and the time of possible outbreaks," Ren Baozhen, an official from the Shandong Agricultural Department, told China Daily yesterday.

After collecting the information, we take targeted action to try to keep locusts under control, Ren added.

The province is also using satellites and helicopters to consolidate its monitoring of locusts.

In North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, helicopter crews are working with teams on the ground to prevent the insects from ravaging new land, local sources say.

Hainan and other affected provinces emphasize traditional methods. These include increasing cropland and forestland in order to decrease the amount of wasteland that locusts can live on and growing bananas and mangos instead of sugar cane and dry land rice which locusts love to eat.

Farmers are also encouraged to kill locust eggs found underground, and better protect locusts' natural enemies.

China has made great achievements in fighting locust outbreaks since 1998.

"We have made breakthroughs in the development of locust-control methods, introducing more and more sophisticated high-tech equipment," Zhu said.

More than ten locust pesticides, which are not harmful to the environment or human beings, have also been invented, demonstrated or applied in some areas.

Also, following years of research, Chinese scientists can make more accurate predictions about locust-hit areas with accuracy of up to 95 percent. They are able to predict the time the locusts will come from 20 days to half a year before their arrival.

"Successful predictions can save millions of dollars every year," Zhu said.

(China Daily August 16, 2006)