The grasshopper problem that afflicts the Nuorese and Upper Oristano area comes to the attention of the government. Lucia Scanu, deputy of Coraggio Italia, presented a question to the Minister for Agricultural and Forestry Policies, Stefano Patuanelli: in the document the Sardinian parliamentarian inserted various requests including the declaration of the state of calamity, the activation of disinfestation also in coordination with the Civil Protection and if necessary with the Army, the provision of refreshments for the most affected categories, the implementation of the planning of interventions to prevent and prevent the current state of things from reappearing with the same profile even in the next agricultural years and to prevent it from spreading further.
“The farmers - explains Scanu - had already had to deal with the phenomenon, which this spring is spreading, bringing intense destruction to the countryside. From the plain of Ottana , the grasshoppers moved as in a devastating wave towards Noragugume in Bolotana , and then I llorai, Olzai, Teti, Sarule, Sedilo and the surrounding territories. From the reports of the experts we read that the outbreaks start mainly from abandoned land, and then cause damage in the neighboring areas, thus favoring the expansion of the phenomenon from one year to the next in the absence of adequate interventions ".
“Up to now, the problem has been underestimated and it is the breeders and farmers who are currently witnessing the destruction of many years of sacrifices - the deputy adds -. Despite three years of appeals and proposals by the workers of the sector and the most representative associations, no significant action has been taken to prevent this scourge ".
Each grasshopper, it is underlined, “is able to consume a quantity of vegetable biomass equal to their body weight on a daily basis and we are talking about 200-300 tons in total based on their estimated number. To understand the size and scope of this disaster - describes the parliamentarian from Oristano - we can refer to the georeferenced maps, reported and found by the operators in the area and by the technicians of Laore who have reached dimensions that make the fire that devastated the Montiferru tiny. . In fact, the borders of the red zones, declined in the disaster map, mark the stratospheric figure of 30,000 hectares hit by the grasshopper tsunami for a comparative figure of about 30,000 football fields ”.
(Unioneonline / ss)
