15 May 2018

The Ministry of Agricultural Development and Food Security has embarked on an operation to fight the quelea bird invasion in Pandamatenga which has been giving farmers sleepless nights by damaging their crops, especially sorghum.

The operation, which has been running for two months, is said to be yielding good results. Pandamatenga is regarded as an agricultural hub and a food basket for the whole nation so attacks of this nature is of great concern to the ministry, farmers and the nation at large.

A Pandamatenga farmer, Ms Josephine Piet told BOPA in an interview that the bird targeted mainly the sorghum crop. Sorghum, she said, was one of the crops which performed well in the area.

Ms Piet said they were happy with the help and support they were getting from the ministry.

The ministry’s Chobe public relations officer, Mr France Bengesel, said Pandamatenga produced almost 80 per cent of the country’s cereal demand making fighting the quelea bird invasion imperative.

He said they had recently discovered that the birds migrated from Zimbabwe to Pandamatenga.

The ministry had to engage the Zimbabwean Ministry of Wildlife to help them fight the quelea birds adding that Botswana and Zimbabwe had a good working relationship in controlling the pests.

He said the two countries used different methods of controlling the birds with Zimbabwe using chemicals while Botswana used explosives.

Both methods work very well in terms of quelea bird control, he said.

Another effective method which the ministry employed was the use of birds of prey called falcons.

The United States government trained falcons, which were brought to Pandamatenga on a trial basis, succeeded in scaring away quelea birds, he said.

Mr Bengesel said the only challenge was that only a few falcons were brought to Pandamatenga.

He explained that if more falcons were brought to Pandamatenga Farms, the problem of quelea bird would be eradicated.ENDS