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News
about Rice and People
22
May 2002
Rice
Researchers Win Major Environmental Prize
Los
Baños, Philippines - An innovative campaign that promises to
help protect a million rice farmers in the Red River Delta of Vietnam
from the harmful effects of dangerous insecticides has won one of the
world's major environmental prizes. The campaign - which will be
jointly advanced by a team of Philippine and Vietnamese scientists -
will build on a groundbreaking effort that has sharply reduced
pesticide misuse in Vietnam's Mekong Delta.
The
collaborative effort, led by K.L. Heong, a senior entomologist at
the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), M.M. Escalada, a
communications professor at the Philippine's Leyte State University,
and Nguyen Huu Huan, the vice director general of Vietnam's Plant
Protection Department, received the $25,000 Saint Andrews'
Environmental Prize earlier this month at a ceremony in Scotland.
First
launched in 1994 in the Mekong Delta - long one of the great rice
bowls of Asia - the research and subsequent campaign marked a
milestone in rice production for two reasons. Firstly, it clearly
identified the damage caused by the overuse of insecticides, which
kills off friendly insects and so encourages the pests they would
otherwise help control, and it also developed a completely new way of
communicating important information to farmers.
After
testing their campaign in the Mekong Delta, where almost 2 million
rice growers were persuaded to cut back on using harmful and
unnecessary farm chemicals, the research partners launched, on World
Environment Day last June, a similar, on-going campaign in northern
Thailand's Sing Buri Province. Now they will use the Saint Andrews'
prize money to extend the campaign to another million rice farmers in
the Red River Delta. In announcing the winners, Sir Crispin Tickell,
the chairman of the St Andrews' Prize Board of Trustees, said:
"In the end we decided to give the prize to a proposal of
obvious and lasting benefit to millions of people which could and
should be a model for others: the cultivation of rice by methods
which combine the benefits of the old and the new, and avoid the
hazards which have so damaged rice and other cultivation of grains worldwide."
Research
has found that many insecticide sprays applied by Asian rice farmers
are unnecessary because they are applied at the wrong time and to the
wrong targets. In addition, many of the chemicals used, such as
methyl parathion, monocrotophos and metamidophos, are highly
hazardous to human health and so are banned in the developed world.
These
sprays disrupt natural biological control mechanisms - nature's
"immune system" - and thereby create an environment
favorable to ecologically fitter pest species. This prompts farmers
to spray even more late in the season. Not only can farmers become
victims of pesticide poisoning, but sprays can damage aquatic fauna,
reducing fish and prawn cultures, and cause broad damage to the local
environment.
The
research team found that most farmers in Vietnam and elsewhere spray
in the early crop stages because of highly visible leaf damage caused
by caterpillars, beetles and grasshoppers. However, many of the
modern rice varieties farmers grow today have built-in insect
resistance and generally do not require pest control.
The
project team realized that this overuse and incorrect spraying of
insecticides was due to years of aggressive pesticide advertising and
marketing that played to farmers' often misplaced fears.
"What
appeared to motivate farmers to spray insecticides during the early
stages were misconceptions, lack of knowledge and biased estimations
of losses due to pests," Dr. Heong explained. "But we found
that the amount rice farmers expected to lose if no insecticides were
applied was about 13 times higher than the actual losses.
"So
we set out to find ways to change the attitudes of farmers and
motivate them to spray less," Dr. Heong said.
The
research group quickly realized that a primary source of information
for farmers was local radio broadcasts. From then on, the
ever-present farmer radios were at the heart of a media campaign
that, in its first six years, had a profound impact on the use of
insecticides in the Mekong Delta.
"We
got a group of actors to play out a series of brief comedies, using
rustic situations and solid scientific facts to make the audience
laugh," Dr. Heong explained. "We were then very pleasantly
surprised to find these simple, humorous messages fixed themselves in
the minds of thousands of farmers."
Such
was the success of the campaign that 15 provincial administrations
throughout the Mekong Delta and beyond adopted the radio and poster
strategy. "It was all based on the premise that farmers'
perceptions, rather than economic rationale, were used in most
pest-management decisions," Dr. Heong said.
The
radio dramas, supported by leaflets and posters, were first aired in
Long An Province in 1994. Research had shown that spraying in the
first 40 days after sowing was not necessary, so farmers were told it
was a waste of money. They were encouraged to see for themselves with
a simple experiment, spraying only part of their crop and comparing
the yield from the sprayed and unsprayed portions.
The
effects were soon obvious, and by 1997 the campaign had been picked
up by 11 other provincial governments and was reaching about 92
percent of the Mekong Delta's 2.3 million farm households. The
results became clear with
the
analysis in 1999 of intensive surveys.
Insecticide
use had fallen from an average of 3.4 applications per farmer per
season, to just one - a decrease of 72 percent. The number of farmers
who believed that insecticides would bring higher yields had fallen
from 83 percent to 13 percent. The number who realized that
insecticides killed the natural enemies of rice pests, as well as the
pests themselves, had risen from 29 percent to 79 percent.
At
the same time, the gross paddy output of the Mekong Delta increased
from 11 million to 14 million tons per year. Dr. Heong believes that
insecticide use can be further reduced by half without affecting rice
production. But he and his research partners also fear that
insecticide use will creep up again if the campaign is allowed to lapse.
"The
only information most farmers get is advice from chemical companies
to use more sprays," Dr. Heong says. "They think that every
dollar they spend on insecticide is going to mean about 13 dollars in
their pockets at harvest time. In fact, that far exceeds reality.
Even in a worst-case scenario - a seriously damaging pest infestation
- they might benefit by only four dollars from one dollar spent, and
the worst-case scenario is a rare event.
"We
should be training people to communicate, to deliver information to
the farmers and motivate them to evaluate the new information
objectively," Dr. Heong concluded. "In this way, they can
improve their knowledge and, at the same time, learn new values. And,
with the money we have received from the St. Andrews Environmental
Prize, we will now be able to not only continue this important work
but also extend its impact to the benefit of many more rice farmers."
IRRI
is the world's leading international rice research and training
center. Based in the Philippines and with offices in 11 other
countries, it is an autonomous, nonprofit institution focused on
improving the well-being of present and future generations of rice
farmers and consumers, particularly those with low incomes, while
preserving natural resources. IRRI is one of 16 Future Harvest
centers funded the Consultative Group on International Agricultural
Research (CGIAR), an association of public and private donor agencies.
For
more information, visit the websites of CGIAR (www.cgiar.org)
or Future Harvest (www.futureharvest.org).
Future Harvest is a nonprofit organization that builds awareness and
supports food and environmental research for a world with less
poverty, a healthier human family, well-nourished children, and a
better environment. Future Harvest supports research, promotes
partnerships, and sponsors projects that bring the results of
agricultural research to rural communities, farmers, and families in
Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
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For
additional information, contact Duncan Macintosh, IRRI, DAPO Box
7777, Metro Manila, Philippines; telephone (63-2) 845-0563 or (63-2)
844-3351 to 53; fax: (63-2) 891-1292 or (63-2) 845-0606; email: d.macintosh@cgiar.org
Web
(IRRI): <http://www.cgiar.org/irri;>
Web (Library): <http://ricelib.irri.cgiar.org;/>
Web
(Riceweb): <http://www.riceweb.org;/>
Web (Riceworld): http://www.riceworld.org
Al
Benavente
Information
Services
IRRI
International
Rice Research Institute
www.cgiar.org/irri
Tel.
+63 (2) 845-0563 Fax +63 (2) 845-0606
Email:
irri@cgiar.org
DAPO
Box 7777,
Metro
Manila,
Philippines
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