Russia Spent 120 Million Rubles to Protect Grains From Locusts
Russia spent 120 million rubles ($4.3 million) to fight locusts this year and protect crops, the Agriculture Ministry said.
The money was used to spray the insects on 760,000 hectares (1.88 million acres) of land, the ministry said today on its website. Some 8.6 million hectares were inspected and locusts were found to have landed on 2.2 million hectares.
The ministry estimated the potential damage to be as much as 50 billion rubles.
“Grains did not suffer in Russia,” Agriculture Minister Yelena Skrynnik said on the department’s website.
Locust incidents rose significantly in Dagestan, Kalmykia, Astrakhan, Saratov and other southern regions this year as a result of last year’s drought and a relatively warm winter, Interfax cited Skrynnik as saying in Kalmykia earlier today. Locusts’ peak seasons occur once every 10 years, and the last took place in 2001, Interfax cited Skrynnik as saying.
To contact the reporter on this story: Marina Sysoyeva in Moscow msysoyeva@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net
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