Quelea birds are one of the major crop pests that pose a huge risk to small grain crop farmers and cause pre-harvest losses in the eastern Africa region. Breeding, feeding and migration patterns have been changing over the years possibly due to climate change and expansion of irrigated farming in the region.
As a body mandated to survey and control migratory pests including quelea birds in the eastern Africa region, DLCO-EA supported the Ethiopia Government’s Ministry of Agriculture in the aerial management of quelea birds in the central rift valley, Oromia region in January 2024.
A total of 100ha was controlled using 200lts of avicide, on 8 roosting sites with an estimated population of 26million birds. These would have destroyed over 5.2millions tons of grain in the central rift valley area alone during this season.
Quelea bird are one of the major crop pests that pose a huge risk to small grain crop farmers causing pre-harvest losses in the eastern Africa region. Breeding, feeding and migration patterns have been changing over the years possibly due to climate change and expansion of irrigated farming in the region.
As a body mandated to survey and control of migratory pests including quelea birds in the eastern Africa region, DLCO-EA supported the Ethiopian Government’s Ministry of Agriculture in aerial management of quelea birds in central rift valley, Oromia region in January 2024. A total of 100 ha was controlled using 200lits of avicide, on 8roosting sites with an estimated population of 26 million birds. This would have destroyed over 5.2 million tons of grain in the rift valley area alone for the season
