Nepal is offering farmers cash rewards for catching desert locusts to limit the damage caused by the destructive swarms that have ravaged harvests in India and Pakistan.

South Asia is experiencing its worst infestation in decades, with the plague of locusts devastating agricultural heartlands and are now entering Nepal.

“Our decision is aimed at encouraging people to catch the insects instead of using pesticides which might be harmful to the environment,” agriculture ministry spokesman Khagendra Prasad Sharma, who handles the Far West Province, told AFP.