Thousands of 'Army' Caterpillars Attack Balangan

By Hasan Zainuddin

Paringin, South Kalimantan (Antaranews) - Rice farmers in the subdistrict of Awayan and South Paringin, Balangan District, South Kalimantan, lately confused facing thousands of caterpillars attack their rice crops.

"We really face a flurry of new pests never encountered before which we refer to as `army caterpillar`," said Ikip (35), a farmer in Panggung Village in the region to the press on Wednesday.

According to Ikip, it called army caterpillar as it matchstick like head looks like a soldier wearing a helmet. And the caterpillar swarm attack is exactly like army attack, meaning done by region.

"This new pest attacking until they run (destroyed) a first crop of paddy fields. After they had, they moved to another area. Their attacks are very fast, only one night the paddy area was exterminated," said his friend Amrullah justified Aki.

According to them , the first time the caterpillar attack rice crops in the region they difficult to eradicate. Although sprayed with pesticides, they are hard to die. You see, there is indeed one or two died , but the others are so much to attack the rice plant.

Therefore, some residents have no expect again to harvest the rice crop because they left only rods, while leaves have been exterminated to the helm.

The farmers in these two subdistricts expect government assistance in this case the local Agriculture Agency to eradicate the unknown pest, because in the absence of  treatment should not be expected in this region produce food reserves.