Diego Quiroga, Argentina's agriculture agency’s chief of vegetative protection, said that it was impossible to eradicate the swarm, so they focused on minimizing the damage caused by it by sending out fumigators equipped with backpack sprayers to exterminate small pockets of young locusts that are still unable to fly.
This method of extermination, however, is unable to wipe out pocket of locusts hidden in Argentina's large, dry forests.
The locusts were expected to grow ten inches (25 cm) and mature into flying swarms by 5 February.
A swarm of this size is worrisome to Argentines because locusts, a type of grasshopper, attack farmers' crops and can cause famine and starvation.
The infestation was so bad that SENASA, the government agricultural inspection agency, set up a hotline for people to call if they see any locusts.