Central Region Rice Harvest Hit By Rice Eating Flies/pests

[gouda]

has anyone's rice harvest been affected by the flies that eat the rice in the rice fields? they are called Pleea เพลี๊ย in Thai but not sure what they are called in english, and does anyone know why they've been so abundant these last few months, local farmers are saying that its never been like this in the last 20 years

What is an effective pesticide to use against them? it seems that the local farmers tend to use several brands of pesticides in an attempt to kill most pests but doesn't seem to be effective against these.

Also heard the government are paying for these pests by the kilo as an incentive to catch them.

In the central region it seems that the harvest has been hit very bad by Pleea and farmers are getting very low amounts of rice e.g. 500Kg from 4 or 5 rai instead of their normal 700-800kg per rai, some aren't even bothering to cut their as the amount they'd get wouldn't even pay for the cost of hiring the harvester and transportation costs.

By the way the local farmers grow Patumthani fragrant rice and not Hom Mali.

I don't actually grow rice myself but have some family members that do..

[Maizefarmer]

You don;t mean the gall midge (rice gall midge) do you? - because what you are calling a เพลี๊ย is to the best of my knowledge a type of psyllid, though in Thai it is often used in a colloquil way to describe one or other of a whole bunch of creep crawly insect pests - yes, the gall midge has been a dam_n pest this year - far more than usual.

Edited December 10, 2009 by Maizefarmer

[gouda]

it doesn't seem to be that one by the photo's of the rice gall midge that i googled for.

have managed to take a pic of the them, their legs don't seem to be as long as the rice gall midge

i think the full name is เพลี๊ย จั๊กจั่น

anyone seen these and know what their called in English?

[Farma]

An interesting link with photos http://www.malaeng.com/blog/?p=6065 from Siam Insect Zoo and Museum.

[gouda]

oh, well just managed to find out, its the brown plant hopper and seems to affected central areas only for now...

apparently there was a 2 day national campaign by the govt's rice dept on 3rd sept 2009 to educate farmers about these... did anyone know about this campaign and have any more info on it.. cheers

[Maizefarmer]

Its one of the most pesticide resistant pests in Asain rice fields .......

[finner]

Here's a clipping from the Bangkok Post last week:

FARMING

Insects devastate rice crops

A leading rice miller in Phichit is urging the government to help millers and farmers who have suffered heavy losses from a plague of brown planthoppers which have destroyed about 1.6 million rai of paddy.

Mingkhwan Pukpiem, head of the rice millers' club in Phichit, yesterday said the pests had damaged 70% of the rice in the province. .

He said millers were being forced to compete for the available supplies to maintain their stocks, causing the price of rice to soar to 15,000 baht a tonne for fragrant rice and 12,000 baht a tonne for 25% white rice.

Mr Mingkhwan called on the government to offer immediate assistance.

Pariman Panlee,- of the Phichit agricultural office, said brown planthoppers had destroyed 369,243 rai (about 590 square kilometres) of paddy fields and affected 28,278 families in nine districts of the province.

Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Theera Wongsamut said officials were sent to paddy fields all year round to try to break the life cycle of the brown plant-hoppers to protect rice farmers as rice prices were rising steadily.

He said Phichit had been declared a disaster-stricken area so government agencies could bring in immediate help.

Rice Department director-general Prasert Kosalyawit said brown planthoppers had damaged 1.6 million rai of paddy fields across the country.

He said the pest had proliferated because farmers were planting back-to-back crops to gain from high rice prices.

[Maizefarmer]

A large part of the overall pest control problem we have in Thailand (I suffered as well through 2009 with an unusulay denser pest problem on maize) has stemmed from the undisciplined usage of pesticides (and herbicides over the last 10 - 20years.

The consequence - coupled with climatic conditons, is that each time we xperience an explosion of crop pests, we find that we have to use more pesticide. Why? - because many of the pests that trouble rice and maize crops (and in maize it's not nearly as bad as the problem rice farmers suffer - though I have little doubt it will head the same way in due course) have developed more and more resistance to the base/active ingredients used most of the pesticide formulaes on the Thai market.

What exacerbates the problem even more is the quantity of counterfeit pesticide on the Thai market - especially in rural and small town retail dealers, where both staff and buyers are often not educated enough to identify genuine from fake, and in the case of dealers, a deliberate willingness to stock counterfeit (cheaper to buy, so easier to sell cheaper and yield a high[er] margin - greed).

Counterfiet is always cheaper - and it's seldom because it's been smuggled into Thailand to get round import duties.

It's more likely to be cheaper because neither the quality nor the quantity of active ingredient is what it should be - in some cases been little better than a incensed placebo, and in other cases having something complelty different as an active ingredient, and when it does contain the correct type of active ingredient, it's often in a very different concentration from what it should be, or is lacking the stabilisers required to preserve effectiveness and shelf life.

Pesticide usage and education regards it's usage is a close potential second to climate change, when it comes to the priorities that Thailand's ag sector is going to have to address successfully if it is to deal with the long term changes required by Thailand should it anticipate any success in the future. It is as it stands, the most inefficent sector in the country's overall GDP - almost hopelessly inefficient.

Crop production (especialy rice) is laughably low when compared to other Asian countries in the region - and it's set to only get worse if Thai polciy makers and elected officials don't pull their fingers out their <deleted>, enforce correct/safe pesticide/herbicide usage, introduce higher yielding hybrids, strip out the chain of dealers between farmers and the market, mechanise cultivation/production and harvesting, address the issues relating crop logistics, address the social causes that lie behind the ever reducing size of family farms, provide more education oppurtunities for farmers, restructure the financial help that farmers get from central government ect ect ect ...... the problems that need sorting out just go on and on ...........

Yes - I have drifted off the gouda's original issue (pest problems), but while it's certainly been a problem this last year, addressing it only is not going to sort out the mess that the countrys' ag sector is in.

The whole "business" needs overhauling if its to stand a chance and be a vaible part of Thailands GDP in the years to come.