Cutting his rice production by about 10 per cent for the past four years, Francis Migwi, a Mwea rice farmer, describes the apple snail as a cureless terror for the scheme’s farmers.
According to the agriculture research institute CABI, he might be among the lucky ones with the average farmer at the scheme losing 14 per cent of their rice and up to 60 per cent of their income yearly to the invasive snail. First reported in Kenya in 2020, it has spread to 90 per cent of the Mwea Rice scheme and neighbouring rice farms. Without any sure way devised to get rid of it, its continued unchecked spread inside the biggest rice-producing region in the country will have serious negative effects on Kenya’s food security as well as the potential to spread to other rice-growing regions in the country such as Ahero and even to Uganda and Tanzania.
“Last year I harvested 1.35 tons from my one-acre farm– 10 per cent less than the previous year. Almost all this loss was occasioned by an attack by the snail,” Francis said.
The apple snail feeds exclusively on rice, usually chewing and cutting off three to five-week six-inch seedlings– a growth stage that is impossible to replant lost rice.
An adult apple snail can destroy a square meter of rice in a single night. Meanwhile, females can lay up to 3,000 eggs overnight with a 90 per cent survival rate and a four-year life span. These eggs drown in the water and are carried throughout the irrigation scheme in interconnected canals delivering the snail to different farms. This makes getting rid of the pest extremely difficult.
Francis informed that farmers have sought out and been promised various chemical remedies but as yet, nothing has gotten rid of the snail. “We have tried all sorts of insecticides but as yet nothing has worked. The only sure way of killing them is plucking them by hand and leaving them out in the sun to die,” he pointed out.
This however costs him an extra cost of about Sh4,400 more a season– a steep cost for smallholder rice farmers– than it costs to spray with chemicals.
According to CABI, farmers are spending up to Sh20,000 per hectare in labour, pesticide, and production costs to control the snail.
The organisation at the forefront of combatting the apple snail menace recommends that farmers drain water canals and paddy fields killing the snails by exposure to harsh conditions and predators such as birds and snakes.
Other common methods of tackling the pest deployed by farmers are placing nets at the water entryways, draining paddies, and constructing small trenches along the edge of rice plots. This sucks the snails when the water is drained making it easy to collect and kill them.
Additional effective methods used by farmers to control the apple snail were placing bamboo stakes around their rice fields which provided snails with ideal egg-laying sites. These bamboo were then removed and the eggs were killed.
Most farmers also weeded canals to reduce the snail’s habitats/hiding places and laying areas.
Image Courtesy: CABI
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