NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 3 — Like the stubborn plagues in the Bible, the quelea birds have become a nightmare for farmers in Ahero, Kisumu County, eating off their sweat weeks before harvest.
If you passed by rice fields in the West Kano Irrigation Scheme, you would imagine heated demonstrations are ongoing as men, women and children alike shout, wave, and clap to chase away the colorful red-billed quelea bird giving farmers sleepless nights.
Gaudensia Anyango, a mother of five treks for kilometers every morning accompanied by his five children to chase away the quelea birds from his two-acre farm.
The 65-year-old woman is staring at a loss if she doesn’t play the chasing game with the stubborn birds.
“It’s really anguish for farmers as I walk every day for kilometers to come and chase the birds away. This is my livelihood to cater for my children and therefore I have to chase away the birds’ failure to which I will have no harvest,” she says.
In anticipation of a bumper harvest from her rice field, Anyango narrates that she took a loan during the planting season as any business person would.
Bird scarers for hire
Normally she would expect a harvest of 40 bags of rice but their investment faces an immense risk from the birds.
“I have two acres of farm and in a good month, I would harvest 35 bags or 40 bags. But with these bird menace you can only harvest 15 bags which is a loss comparing it to the cost of production,” Anyango states.
Anyango wakes up early in the morning in a never-ending circus to outmaneuver the flock of birds routinely perch on the rice fields raiding the farmers’ harvest.
Unlike other wealthy farmers, she cannot afford to hire bird scarers to protect his two acres. It would be too expensive for her.
“The government should help us because this is my source of income. We are only the three of us here and we can’t afford to chase away the birds,” she says.
“Previous regimes used to control the bird but now the situation is uncontrollable.”
Silas Dey, a farmer having formerly worked as an agricultural officer in the coordination of bird control in Kisumu County, has attributed the invasion to laxity in the control of the birds.
The last crop protection was done in March 2022 in a joint exercise between the national government and the county government.
“I think they don’t have enough resources because you need vehicles. You need to have vehicles to do the surveillance and know the roosting places of these birds,” said Deya.
Worst infestation in five decades
This is the worst farmers have been hit by the quelea birds in five decades with the blame being lack of resources and poor coordination by the counties within the Nyanza region as the birds don’t only affect Kisumu County.
“The control should be done in all the rice schemes within this area because these are migratory birds. You might control them here and yet their others in schemes such as the one in Budalangi or Migori who will derail the efforts,” he added.
The government had said that they had employed drone surveillance and chemical spraying to deal with the flock of birds but farmers are saying, it’s not working.
“This time I was told there was a drone but I was not there to see how it worked to eradicate these birds. The farmers are however saying that it never worked.”
Lack of proper synchronization has affected the control of the birds as well as the drought situation. Farmers in Ahero claim that quelea birds love feeding on wheat in Narok but due to the raving drought, rice is the only available food for them
“We don’t have wheat in Narok, if we had wheat they could go to Narok. Now they only deepened on rice in Kisumu since in Migori they have already harvested,” Deya stated.
He said that the unsynchronized cropping calendar in the rice schemes and the growing of sorghum in the area caused the surge of birds.
“Last year the farmers left five acres to birds because we could employ even 5 people per acre and still you couldn’t manage to control the birds,” Deya narrated.
County government intervention
The county government of Kisumu has announced plans to eliminate an additional 5.8 million quelea birds in the coming days.
But Paul Gicheru, the program manager at Nature Kenya has argued that extreme eradication of the bird might affect the ecosystem.
“The issue of Quelea is unique because the species of the Quelea Bird is considered a pest. It’s considered in the Wildlife Act as a species to be considered as a pest because of the issues to do with agriculture,” Gicheru said.
“We need to look at the ecosystem as a network more like a food chain. When you eradicate one species completely they will be a knockoff effect in the web that exists within the ecosystem. I don’t think it’s a wise move on eradicating a species,” he added.
Aerial spraying
The caution is that the aerial spraying using chemicals that they spray over the birds and they die is harmful and toxic to humans
“The chemical they use is not Quelea specific; it’s just a general chemical. So if they are killing Quelea they are not killing the bird but also other vertebrates and especially birds,” Gicheru noted.
“There is increased contamination because these chemicals get in the food chain,” he added.
It’s a tough balancing act and any effort to eradicate the birds cannot be wished away. Rice farmers are facing losses by the day amidst the huge cost of production.
Food and Agriculture Organization estimates show a single quelea could eat up to 10 grams of grain a day with a flock of two million projected to devour as much as 20 tons of grain a day.
Farmers in Ahero gnash their teeth waiting for the government’s help to keep the voracious birds at bay. Until that happens, the frustrating hide-and-seek efforts will not stop until a harvest is secured.
