Huge swarms of locusts have destroyed crops in northern and eastern China this summer forcing officials to take urgent measures to fight the plague. So far, at least 1.2 thousand tons of insecticide, 50 thousand pesticide-spraying machines and four crop-dusting aircrafts have been mobilised to control the insects but the FAO is seeking a more environmentally friendly way to deal with the problem.

During an FAO field trial the bio-pesticide, Green Muscle, was sprayed on more than 1,400 hectares of land infested by Desert Locust larvae. The new eco-friendly pesticide is non-toxic to humans and kills only locusts and grasshoppers - having no other known environmental side effects.

The new control method uses a natural fungus, called Metarhizium anisopliae, which infects locust hoppers in such a way that they stop feeding and die in one to three weeks.

But a number of challenges to widespread use of Green Muscle remain. To protect food crops from imminent locust attacks by hoppers and swarms, conventional pesticides are still required as they can kill locusts quicker.

While most conventional pesticides kill locusts immediately, the fungus in Green Muscle needs up to three weeks to grow within the body of the insect to finally kill it.

Locust swarms contain millions of locusts that literally eat everything in their path. Each insect can eat its own body weight in food each day and they are very destructive in the amount of matter they eat. There can be at least 40 million and sometimes as many as 80 million locust adults in each square kilometer of swarm.