Tajik Army Winning War on Locusts

In the Vakhsh district of southern Tajikistan, soldiers are using military tactics against the insects to prevent them devastating crops. The army is posting scouts on hilltops to spot the swarms and hitting them with insecticides in the cool of the evening, when they are least dispersed.



Large swathes of land under seedlings were devastated in 2007, a particularly bad year.



This time, wet weather has dampened down the rate at which the locusts are multiplying. And the chemical attacks have begun earlier, before the insects grow wings and prepare to migrate from region to region.