Best practice bird control. Validated RNRRS Output.
Abstract
This is one of 280 summaries describing key outputs from the projects run by DFID's 10-year Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy (RNRRS) programmes.
Principally based on Projects R7967, R8314 and R8426. Plant protection teams in Sub-Saharan Africa now have best practices to guide them in controlling bird pests. The Red-Billed Quelea devastates subsistence crops of sorghum and millet, as well as of commercial wheat and rice. But current methods of dealing with the birds—spraying them with chemicals or blowing up their roosts with a mix of diesel and petrol—are harmful to the environment. Plant protection departments in ministries of agriculture in Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe now use these best practices. They assess the effects of their bird control measures and adapt them to have less harmful effects on the environment. This means lower doses of chemicals and smaller charges of explosive.
The CD has the following information for this output: Description, Validation, Current Situation, Environmental Impact. Attached PDF (9 pp.) taken from the CD.
Citation
CPP74, New technologies, new processes, new policies: tried-and-tested and ready-to-use results from DFID-funded research, Research Into Use Programme, Aylesford, Kent, UK, ISBN 978-0-9552595-6-2, p 54.