Locusts swarm, apparently, when they become so crowded together that the rate at which they brush each other’s back legs gets beyond a joke. When they then descend on some unsuspecting field in vast numbers, you can say goodbye to whatever crop was trying to grow there.
So the world now has locust control programmes which consist of spraying insecticides or fungal particles on them. This is probably not that good for the environment, even if the volumes of chemicals involved are small.
Today’s invention is to use vacuum cleaners to suck up the offending critters. No point using a bag cleaner of course, so I propose that a large cyclone device be designed, using eg oildrums and fitted at the bottom with a fan powered by a small diesel engine. This would have a large inlet and be cheap enough for every farm to have one fitted to a trailer so as to be manoeuvrable into position beneath a swarm.
The bugs would be sucked into it in large numbers, probably coating the inside gradually with a layer of their carcasses. The majority would be deposited in a hopper (sorry) enabling it to be converted conveniently to animal food or fertiliser. (I had an uncle who ate fried locust paste from a bucket whilst serving in the 8th Army and he said they tasted good -manna from heaven).
Does Dyson have a patent that covers pest control -and cookware, I wonder? ; )
