A casual laborer digging at Tochi irrigation scheme. The Scheme beneficiaries want tractor support to ease farming compared to hand hoes. Photo By Simon Wokorach
By Simon Wokorach
Oyam: An invasion of rats is affecting rice yields at the Tochi Irrigation Scheme in Oyam district.
Tochi Irrigation scheme was launched jointly in 2018 by the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry, and Fisheries, together with the Ministry of Water and Environment.
The scheme built at Shs32b from the African Development Bank, was meant to serve 1,224 smallholder rice farmers in the three sub-counties of Minakulu, Acaba, and Ngai.
However, a report from Oyam district entomology department shows that 90% of the rice crops in the scheme were destroyed by the invasive rats in the year 2023 from the first season of farming.
The report further notes that the losses incurred by the farmers in the same period are projected at shs1.4b which is equivalent to 10,000 bags of rice lost in the season.
“Under the natural ecosystem, snakes which could feed on the rodents to reduce their population are going extinct due to climate change and the natural setup has changed,” the report reads in part.
Ray Okello, has since 2021 been spending sleepless nights in his rice garden to chase the rats.
Okello leaves home in the morning to farm, returns home to rest during day, and goes back to the farm at night to scare the rats.
His first harvest from an acre of land was 30 bags of rice which he sold at shs 2.5m. The amount inspired him to start a house-building project in 2020, the year he started farming at the irrigation scheme.
“But later, rats came and destroyed all my crops in the second season,” Okello recounts, adding; “There was a day I killed them and collected a basinful.”
Okello beats empty tins and burns old tyres to scare the rats.
Stella Obonyo, another rice farmer has abandoned rice growing because of the destructive rats.
“I lost everything here to rats,” said Obonyo, a farmer who gave up on growing rice at the scheme after investing shs3m and losing it all.
Why rats invaded the rice scheme
In 2021, hundreds of farmers abandoned their plots after floods submerged their crops. The plots grew bushy, something authorities say provided a breeding ground for the rats.
Alex Enon, the Oyam district Senior Commercial Officer, revealed that 654 acres within the rice scheme remain idle to date, creating a conducive place for rats to hide, and crawl to the rice fields when hungry.
“I have never seen this [big number of] rats before in my life. They attack gardens like swarms of locusts and can eat the whole plot in just one night,” Enon said.
Cropping calendar introduced to contain rats
After the rats became resistant to rodenticides, leaders introduced a cropping calendar at the scheme to naturally fight the rats.
A cropping calendar according to the Food Agricultural Organization (FAO) is a tool that provides timely information about seeds to promote local crop production.
It contains information on planting, sowing, and harvesting periods of locally adapted crops in specific agro-ecological zones, sowing rates of seed, and planting material.
Under the cropping calendar, all plots of land are ploughed at the same period, and crops are planted and harvested at once, hence, destroying the habitats of the rats.
“We want to eliminate the use of chemicals in fighting these rats because of its impact on the environment and the risk on the grains. We tested this and it’s working,” Enon noted.
The records at Tochi Irrigation Cooperative indicate that the introduction of a cropping calendar in the second season of 2023 improved the production level of rice from 10 tons to 45 tons.
Geoffrey Otim, the General Secretary of Tochi Cooperative, said the scheme is projected to produce 70 tons of rice per season at optimal use, a quantity he is optimistic farmers can produce once the rats are eliminated.
Cropping calendar faces new challenges
However, farmers like Okello say the cropping calendar might not solve the rat problem entirely, as they use hand hoes to open up several acres of land, which delays in planting.
“I always miss planting in the first season of the rain because sometimes I have to take 5 months in preparing the land which takes me up to the second season,” Okello told GNNA.
There are tractors farmers can hire to open many acres of land within a few hours. However, farmers say the tractor services are unaffordable.
“They [management of the irrigation] bring for us tractors to hire at Shs 180,000. I abandoned my plot because I didn’t have money,” Obonyo said.
According to Enon, the Oyam District Commercial Officer, the government pledged to procure three tractors to support the farmers in opening up the land at a subsidized cost, but the tractors have never been delivered.
“The farmers are using hand hoes to open their land which takes them very long to complete. They can’t catch up with the planting season, but we hope the Ministry of Agriculture addresses that,” Enon said.
According to Enon, a large portion of the scheme has been abandoned and become breeding grounds for rats because farmers can’t plough them all manually.
Snakes for ecological natural control?
As other man-made methods of countering the rats fail, experts are advising for the introduction of snakes as a natural way of reducing the population of the rats.
They explain that burning tyres produces fumes that repel snakes, predators that can help drastically reduce the population of rats in an area.
Dr. Mathias Behangana, a herpetologist (one who specializes in the study of reptiles and amphibians) working at Makerere University Department of Environmental Management, observes that snakes are 90% carnivorous, and introducing them into the farm makes them feed on the rats and reduce their number.
“The higher the number of rats in the area, the more cereal food loss in that area but when there is a good balance of predators and prey, the loss is minimal,” Dr. Mathias said.
Dr. Ivan Kaddu, another herpetologist at Herp Fauna Uganda, also noted that snakes, especially the nonvenomous ones can offer good ecological services to the environment.
According to Dr. Kaddu, each snake can feed on a minimum of three (3) rats per week.
He said in an area like Tochi Irrigation Scheme which is infested with rats, species of non-venomous snakes can be introduced to counter the threats of rat invasion which are destructive to food crops.
Dr. Kaddu, however, explained that once snakes are introduced in a place, it may take a year to have their number correspond to that of the rats.
Each snake can produce 30 snakelets annually, meaning their results on the rats can show in about a year.
Dr. Kaddu suggests that the Uganda Wildlife Authority should begin relocating such predators to the areas with food crops under threat.
“This will eliminate chemical use in the environment because when you spray an environment, you are doing a non-selective control, and other organisms will go extinct,” Dr. Kaddu explained.
To allay fears of snake bites among farmers, Dr. Kaddu said only 5% of the 171 snake species in the Country are poisonous, and can only bite when provoked.
