By Fatou B Cham, Information Officer, MoA
During the monitoring and visibility tour by the Minister of Agriculture, Honourable Amie Fabureh with experts from the Central Project Coordinating Unit (CPCU), Directors from various Departments, and the team from the Ministry of Agriculture, she unveiled the procurement of one thousand (1000) bird-scaring guns for farmers in the rice field.
The visibility and monitoring tour started on Thursday, 21st April 2022 and it is mainly on the Building Resilience against Food and Nutrition in the Sahel Project (P2RS) intervention sites in the West Coast Region (WCR), Lower River Region (LRR), and Central River Region (CRR) respectively.
Ousman Sanyang, representative of Marou Farm Ltd described the timing of the procurement of this equipment as timely and important.
“The equipment are procured through various projects at the Ministry of Agriculture of which the Rice Value Chain Transformation Project brought about 360, P2RS bought 600 while the ROOTS Project, on the other hand, bought about 400 birds scaring guns which sums up to one thousand (1000) bird-scaring guns” he revealed.
He added that the importance of these equipment cannot be overemphasized as it drives away not only birds but hippos and monkeys that intrude the rice field which affects the high production of rice.
These guns do not kill the birds, he narrated, buy they are only meant to scare them away and can cover up to five hectares in the rice field.
“The time the farmers used to consume in staying in the rice field to drive away birds, hippos and monkeys can go up to a month but with this new development, they can carry about their other activities while the equipment drives away the birds from the rice field,” he stated.
Mr. Sanyang further explained that the bird-scaring guns are being operated using gas bottles and they can be set on a timer from the interval of two to fifteen minutes.
According to him, the bird-scaring guns are harmless and the only issue they could say is threatening is the sound but it is the sound that actually drives the birds and hippos away.
“This is affordable to farmers because they only need to fill the gas bottle for D250 after using it for a long period on their farms,” he proclaimed.
He concluded by urging the farmers to make proper utilization of the equipment since they are costly and if properly utilized can make their job on the farm easier.
