Quelea: Can nets tame the voracious farm destroyer?
For many farmers in Sokoto State, the menace of quelea birds remains greatly troubling. Quelea birds, an age-long problem, have continued to pose a major problem for farmers and a great threat to food security and sustainability with their propensity to wipe out a farm completely once their swarm descends on it.
It is a key issue that farmers have identified, especially those into rice production.
Against the backdrop of the continued threat of these birds, Transforming Irrigation Management in Nigeria (TRIMING) is promoting the use of nets as a viable protection option. But how far can fish net go in tackling the menace of the voracious, skyblackening swarms of the tiny quelea bird?
Agribusiness specialist, TRIMING Project, Hallai Garba Ilallah, traces how they came about the net idea.
“What we do is that the farmers will bring out their problem, one of the problems they brought was quelea birds. When the problems of quelea birds came, the facilitators and farmers sat down and put their heads together.
“There was this usual practice of farmers controlling quelea birds with their children. So when the crops are maturing the farmers will prevent all their children from going to school; from going anywhere; from any other activity, for them to be shouting and scaring the birds away.”
We said this is wrong; you are destroying so many things in the society. There are some technologies that have proven worthwhile in other parts of the world. So the fishing nets that we have introduced are one of them,” he explained.
A number of other measures had been employed including aerial spray, use of dummy, explosives to scare the birds away among other but the problem of quelea birds has remained a nagging one.
The chairman, Water Users Association, Irrigation Scheme Goronyo, Malam Abubakar, notes that quelea birds’ invasion is a major problem bedeviling farmers.
“The destruction can be 100 percent. Just within two minutes, they have finished with the destruction and when you go there you won’t see anything, it is immeasurable, that was what happened this year, you can see somebody cultivate a hectare but you will see him with only one or two bags at harvest,’’ he explained.
He further recalled: “In the olden days, if you come in the morning and drive them away you won’t see them until evening but now it is almost throughout the day - from 5:00am to 8:00pm - they are there, they don’t have time now.’’
Abubakar adds: “That is the principal problem we are facing now, because the quelea birds come in very large numbers. It is a problem. The state government is making effort on how to curtail it and the idea of net usage is on the table too but we have not started using it.’’
He said the aerial spray against quelea birds usually financed by the state government was last done two years ago.
“Aerial spray was there but there was no effect, may be the chemical was adulterated. When they want to spray, they tell people not to pick dead birds because they have been poisoned but now after they finish and you go there, you don’t see anything. It is just like they sprayed ordinary water. The argument is if they used good chemical, at times, if you spray this year, you won’t see the birds even the following year,’’ he noted.
He said the farmers are left with the option of using nets as a major defense against the birds but noted that the nets are costly.
The chairman also explained that “If you are using a hectare, it will take about 50 percent of the cost of production. But for now it is the only thing that we can use to have a peaceful night.”
He urged the government to come to their aid, adding that “The only remedy we have now is the net and it is very, very costly. Not everybody can afford to buy it.’’
But the Programme Manager, Sokoto Agricultural Development Programme, Abubakar Tambuwal, believes more in the spray than the use of nets.
“The best method which I am advocating is spraying the farms. Immediately the farmers see the birds coming, they should come and report to us, the state government is ever ready to come and do the aerial survey.
“Immediately after the spray, we ask our personnel to gather the birds and get them burnt because we don’t want people to pick the dead birds. That is why they have not been seeing them,” he said.
Engr Murtala Dalhat, Executive Director, Planning and Design, Sokoto Rima River Basin Development Authority, is of the view that the net technology is an excellent one but is concerned about the cost.
“A technology that has impact on economy, you have to look at it very well. How many can afford to buy the net. It is going to be a cost on production because it is going to add more at the end of the day.
“Right from the leasing of the land, if it is not yours, up to the harvest and purchase of net, it is going to be one of them. If you have a small area it is understandable but a very large area of about five hectares, it will be difficult financially,” he noted.
However, TRIMING project specialist Ilallah pointed out: “What people have discovered in the process of using this technology is where we have a group of farmers who are close: let’s say they own 15-20 hectares. It does not require that every farmer has to cover his own plot as by the time a farmer’s neighbour covers his own plot, it has been observed that the birds become scared.
They have developed some kind of communication among themselves that whenever they want to land on a particular farm and one or two of them get stuck there, they send messages and the others would not come.
So where you have large-scale farms, if you cover up to half of it, it suffices for other parts. But we are still scientifically thinking of how we can overcome these birds,” Ilallah stated.
“The fishing net is only one of the technologies that we are using in controlling quelea birds and so far, the story has been quite good only for its little cost implication but it is part of technology and we will continue cracking our brains to seek for more technology that will be more cost effective,” he also said.
Mohammed Salasi, Country Representative, International Fertilizer Development Centre (IFDC), which is implementing the TRIMING Extension Service Supervision Project, said their aim was to ensure that farmers got not only improved yields but they are also able to protect what they are producing.
“So the net is a very simple technology that is supposed to be set up at the budding stage over the rice field. Once the birds land, they would get trapped, because of the size of the holes they are not able to penetrate.
“At the milking stage, the birds are attracted to the farms and they can completely ravage it but with the use of the simple fish net farmers are able to protect their farms,” he explained.
Salasi stated that “It can be used for two to three seasons once they are able to roll it back at the end of the season. We have done this trial for two, three years now and have seen the success.
“We are working with the farmers; they are happy with what they are seeing and so we are introducing it to others as it can protect crops on their farms” from being decimated by the extremely fast breeding and voracious birds.