BEIJING Farmers in western China have appealed for 5,000 snakes, 20,000 sparrows and 200,000 frogs to fight a swarm of locusts, the official Xinhua news agency reported. It quoted Bi Fubin, who was seeking the locust eaters for farmers in Gulao, near Chongqing, as saying the numbers were calculated carefully to solve the problem without resorting to environmentally unfriendly pesticides. It might sound like a lot of frogs, but they could easily be supplied "if each restaurant in China kills one less frog every day", Bi was quoted as saying. Locusts frequently hit water-short China, especially during droughts. Farmers in other areas of the country have used ducks and chickens to eat voracious locusts chewing through their crops.