Farmers Trade Bugs for Rice

Grasshoppers have damaged 120 hectares of rice fields in Prey Veng province, prompting officials to send out teams of farmers to catch the pests.

“Millions” of grasshoppers have already been caught in Prey Veng district alone, said Hean Vanhan, deputy director of plant protection in the Ministry of Agriculture’s agronomy department.

“These rice-eating insects have been devouring rice paddies since mid-October,” he said Fri­day. “We are very worried by this outbreak.”

His department has paid out more than $700 so far to farmers working to catch tens of thousands of grasshoppers. The World Food Program is also providing rice as payment to farmers who help with the campaign, Hean Vanhan said. The workers receive 5 kg of rice for every 5 kg of grasshoppers, he said. The dead insects will be used as fertilizer.

The official said “millions more” still needed to be collected to prevent further crop damage. The grasshoppers are less de­s­tructive at the moment as the fields are flooded with water, he said, but warned that if the water level drops, more crops could be devoured.

An official from the Agriculture Ministry told the Reuters news agency on Saturday that the damage caused by the insects was localized and was not expected to affect the national rice harvest. Pen Vuth, head of the ministry’s plant protection office, said some experts thought the pests had arrived from China or the Philippines.

Farmers across the country have been plagued by a variety of insects this year. Officials in Kratie said last week that rice bugs had infested 70 percent of the crop in the province.

Farmers in Kandal, Kompong Speu and Takeo provinces have been battling with rice-eating planthoppers in the worst outbreak since 1995.

Last June, so-called army worms ravaged hundreds of hec­tares of rice and vegetable fields in Kompong Cham prov­ince, affecting approximately 200 families.

 

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