After a series of farmer suicides in Odisha’s Bargarh district over pest attack, the state government finally acknowledged that there are nearly 200,000 hectares of area, on which paddy is grown, has been damaged across nine districts. According to farmers, spurious pesticides were in use which proved ineffective to control Brown Plant Hopper, which first wilted lush green crops and then turned them into rust. To prevent further spread of the pest, farmers burnt their crops, but it was not effective.
— source downtoearth.org.in 2017-11-08