Weaver bird, farmers’ pain
Scaring weaver birds on rice farm has become an additional burden for farmers, mostly in the culviation of grains and cereals.
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This is because the weaver mostly feasts on seeds, grains, insects and other small invertibrates.
Their large beak enables them to crack open the thick shells on which they feed and because of their habit of raiding farmlands and fields, some weavers are considered to be nuisance agricultural pests.
The bird's scientific name is Ploceidae.
It is derived from the ancient Greek word plokeus, meaning weaver.
The family also includes birds such as bishops, widow birds and queleas.
Weavers are small songbirds, rarely measuring between five and 10 inches from their rounded head to square tail.
Weaver bird
The plumage (feathers) is perhaps the most interesting and diverse — bright red, yellow, black, grey, brown and white, arranged in different patterns.
The male weavers are particularly notable for their ability to grow bright yellow feathers in the breeding season.
Dawn to dusk
From dawn to dusk, farmers, both men and women, on the Ashaiman and Aveyime Irrigation schemes hold in their hands locally made catapults with hard dry rounded moulded clays by their side pacing up and down, gazing intently at their respective rice fields to spot any marauding weaver.
Indeed, the farmers do not want their investments to go to waste because the birds start attacking the paddy rice.
At the sight of the yellow-breasted birds, a farmer picks one of the rounded clay and puts it in the leather pad of the catapult and shoots at any of the birds that attempt to feed on the rice.
With the left hand holding the catapult, the farmer raises the object and straightens the left arm, while the right arm is simultaneously drawn back, as he or she pulls back the leather pad containing the hardened clay and releases the pad aiming at the birds, it scares the pests in the process.
The farmers are heard shouting at the top of their voices and saying (hey! Or Eii!) while performing that act.
The birds, then fly off only to return when there is nobody around to scare them.
Using scarers
A visibly worried farmer and Chairman of the Water Users Association Left Bank of the Ashaiman scheme, Stephen Fiati, narrated the ordeal farmers go through to the Daily Graphic.
He stated that engaging the services of a human scarer costs between GH¢20 and GH¢30 daily per scarer, which he observed was quite expensive.
“That means it will cost a farmer between GH¢600 and GH¢900 in a month to engage just one human scarer and you need more than one human scarer," Mr Fiati explained.
He said because of the cost involved, farmers usually engaged in scaring themselves, which he described as “a difficult task”.
Mr Fiati further said using scarecrows, drones and nets were equally expensive unless farmers formed groups and contribute to such services, stressing that the drones would be a better option.
Similarly, Alfred Agbeko Akorli, another farmer on the Ashaiman scheme, who had lost his voice due to continuous shouting to scare the hungry birds away, expressed concern about the situation, saying it made him very tired.
On the Aveyime scheme, 60-year-old Enyonam Ankutse and Ernest Yakah are equally not finding things easy with the birds.
As soon as the birds wake up, these two farmers also wake up and go to their respective rice fields until the evening when the birds go to roost.
Ms Ankutse explained that using nets to ward off the birds was quite expensive, whether you rent them or buy them.
She observed that using the nets also attracted children, particularly when the birds settle on the nets.
The children get excited to catch the birds on the nets thereby destroying rice plants.
Some farmers said renting the nets could cost GH¢3,000 per hectare and that those who fixed the nets and removed them when the farming season was over also charged for the jobs they undertook thus increasing the cost of production for the farmers.
Bird scarers
For one thing, different types of bird scarers can be introduced to support farmers.
They include scarecrows, radio-controlled aircraft, predators, dogs, humans, electronic repellers and drones.
Some farmers on the two schemes seem to prefer the usage of drones to other forms of bird scarers.
Indeed, drones can emit some noise to keep the birds from undoing all the farmers' hard work.
Way forward
It will, therefore, be worthwhile for the private sector to partner with the government to provide drone services for the farmers.
Already, the Ghana Irrigation Development Authority (GIDA), under the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, has started partnering with the Jospong Group of Companies to provide some services to farmers.
GIDA can leverage on partnerships to help provide drone services to scare the birds.
With a farming population of 208 at the Ashaiman and Aveyime schemes, one way out is for the farmers to form groups and pool resources to enable them to rent drones to scare the hungry birds.
About Ashaiman, Aveyime
The Ashaiman Scheme, a gravity scheme, was constructed in the year 1968 and has a dam built on River Dzorwulu.
The scheme has a potential area of 200 hectares (ha) out of which 155ha (56ha on the left and 99ha on the right) have been developed.
The Aveyime Irrigation Scheme on the other hand is located in the North Tongu District of the Volta Region.
GIDA started managing the scheme from 1972 till date although the fields were developed in 1960 under different managements.
The scheme crops twice a year and the most common variety of rice grown are the Jasmine 85 and EX-Baika.
The potential irrigable land is 723 ha but only 54 ha is under cultivation.