Thank you for asking that and my apologies for not initially providing a context and by that poor omission opening up the very valid and fair possibility that I was being callous and uncaring. Also thank you for taking the time to raise that question instead of blindly judging and running with the worst case presumption, thank you.
I was thinking along the lines of fishing them as a food resources and drones with nets, but before I ran with that was wondering how well a drone would cope with such swarms and not something that the net did not offerup as a clear answer, either.
Ah, I see. I thought it was a random musing. My apologies then.
That being said regardless of the efficiency of such a solution I suspect that the scale of the invasion would make it hard to make a difference lest you have an army of drones at your disposal. The area to cover is insanely large.
No apology needed, and thank you for taking the time to comment your thoughts as without such feedback I would never of been able to clear things up.
[EDIT ADD] Indeed, if anything I should apologize as I'd left no context behind the question and leaving that open left the possibility of callous unthoughtfulness and you most kindly and rightly so, raised that aspect. Many would of just gone with a downvote - presumed the worst and ran with it in sillence, so again thank you for taking the time to question that. If I could mod you up more for that, I would.
[EDIT ADD - I was able to edit my initial reply as did seem you was being unfairly judged and I hope I've addressed that]
I think something more like a kite rig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kite_rig, but a net would be good. if they could be "thrown" up in the air quickly, have a sort of sticky inside so locust would be caught better, as they filled the net the net would become heavy and be brought down. The net should then be easily detachable somehow, attach another, throw up into the swarm.
Swarm passes by, the kite netters have a couple tons of locusts netted, a good harvest.
on edit: personally like because has such a 50s sci-fi feel to it.
I like the idea of kites, was thinking rockets and large net.
As for the Sci-fi, soon as you mentioned that I oddly thought of Dune, probably the rare resource mining aspect of such swarms and climate comparison going on there.
I just had a dig into what altitude they fly at and 2,000 meter ceiling would make things more complicated.
Hot air balloons dropping nets, or some weather balloons - again tethered. Though would probably want to run with hydrogen for costs, just safety and training go up, so greater initial costs there. So many details.
Kinda gets down to sky versions of submarine nets in predictable flight paths into crop area's as being the best spots to set such trapping nets up.
Though if it turns out you just need to lay down football sized green carpet and that attracts them - well that opens up other avenues in trapping or indeed - zapping them once they touch down.
I was thinking along the lines of fishing them as a food resources and drones with nets, but before I ran with that was wondering how well a drone would cope with such swarms and not something that the net did not offerup as a clear answer, either.
[EDIT ADD first paragraph ]