CHAPTER 3

Pest management practices of rice farmers in Hunan, ChinaLi Shao-Shi, Guo Yu-Jie, Hu Guc-Wen, and Liang Di-Yun

AbstractA survey of rice farmers’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices of integrated pest management was conducted in Wangcheng County, Hunan Province, China, in 1991. Two hundred sixty-six farmers were interviewed. Most (93%) of the farmers believed they could not control insect pests without using pesticides, which they applied 9.9 times per year on average. Seven percent of them believed beneficial insects could keep pest populations from developing, but only 8% knew about parasitoids. Many (62%) obtained pest management information from the local technology extension station. But when actually making a pest control decision, about half relied on their own experience or that of a neighbor’s. Two-thirds of the farmers had not attended any pest management training.

Introduction

To improve pest management in rice in China, emphasis has been placed on developing new control techniques and pest forecasting methods (Du 1991). Although many advances have been made through these efforts, large gaps still exist between research findings and farmers’ practices. Studies done by the Institute of Agricultural Economics, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, revealed that farmers can use only about 30% of the research findings in agriculture because of constraints in the interactions among research, extension, and farmers (Zhu 1992). To rectify this situation, a program for enhancing agricultural development has been launched to make the results of scientific research—including those of integrated pest management (IPM) studies-available to farm households. An important first step in implementing IPM is to understand what farmers think, perceive, and practice.

Researchers have carried out different types of surveys in China (Xu 1989). It was not until this survey, however, that farmers’ decision making and their knowledge, attitudes, and practices in rice pest management in Hunan Province were studied, such as in the surveys conducted by Litsinger et al (1980), Heong (1984), and Escalada and Heong (1993). Information gathered through these surveys can be useful for identifying gaps between what is known in research and farmer’s practices so that appropriate interventions can be developed to improve farmers’ pest management decision making.

Survey site

Hunan Province, which is south of the middle part of the Yangtze River, is one of the largest provinces in China, where farmers grow a double crop of hybrid rice. Of the province’s 2.6 million ha of rice land, 21% is planted to hybrid varieties in the first cropping season and 83% in the second cropping season. Yields average 5.8 t /ha per season (Hunan Yearbook 1991). Wangcheng County, which is near the provincial capital of Changsha (Fig. 1), was chosen as the survey site because it reflects the general conditions in Hunan Province, including having an efficient irrigation system.

The county's population in 1990 was 757,400, with 90% working as farmers. The mean annual temperature is 16.4 °C and the mean annual precipitation is 1,500 mm. The county’s total rice area is 37,700 ha, accounting for 91% of the cultivated land. Most of the varieties planted are bred in Hunan Province and are high-yielding. Generally, indica Xianzhao series and the hybrid Weiyou are used for the first crop, whereas indica varieties Yuchi 231-8, Xiangwan 1, and hybrids Weiyou 64, Weiyou 35, and Xianyou 64 are planted for the second crop.

Methods

We interviewed individuals for the survey. The questionnaire contained 42 questions, and was pretested on 42 farmers and revised five times by subject-matter specialists and extension workers in the Plant Protection Center of Wangcheng County. Agrotechnicians, who were trained for one day on the survey, carried out the interviews in April-May 1991. They randomly selected 266 farm households in 11 villages distributed in nine townships for the survey. Data were analyzed at the Crop Pest Forecasting Station in Hunan Province.,

Results

Sociodemographic profile

Land in Wangcheng County is distributed to farmers based on their family size. The average household size is 2.5 persons, with each having an average of 0.25 ha of cultivatable land, 90% of which is planted to rice. Among the household heads, 59% attended primary school, 29% middle school, 8% high school, and 1% technical secondary school; 4% were illiterate. These farmers commonly plant two rice crops per year. Yields average 6.6 t /ha per crop, about 15% more than the provincial average. The fieldwork is mainly done by 30–40-year-old men (35%), followed by those under 30 years old (25%), and then those 41-50 years old (20%). Many women are also actively involved in farming, with 64% of those surveyed performing supporting labor and 5% doing all the fieldwork. Nineteen percent do not do any fieldwork.

Knowledge on pest management

Pests and natural enemies. Farmers considered sheath blight, caused by Rhizoctonia solani, to be their most important disease, followed by rice blast, caused by Pyricularia oryzae, and bacterial leaf blight, caused by Xanthomonas campestris pv. oryzae. Among insect pests, rice planthoppers—mainly brown planthopper Nilaparvata lugens and whitebacked planthopper Sogatella furcifera— were reported as the major pest, followed by striped stem borer Chilo suppressalis and rice leaffolder Cnaphalocrocis medinalis. The most important rice weed cited was barnyard grass Echinochloa crusgalli (Tables 1 and 2).

More than 90% of the farmers interviewed knew rice sheath blight, rice planthoppers, and rice leaffolder, whereas only 5% could identify bacterial leaf streak and 29% could identify brown spot. These findings imply that more farmers know about insect pests than diseases (Table 2).

When asked about natural enemies, farmers most often cited frogs (93%) and spiders (38%). Thirty-two percent of them also specified birds as being beneficial creatures. Only one farmer knew that the lady beetle Micraspis discolor is a predator, with some even saying it is a pest because it eats rice pollen. Eight percent of the farmers knew the hymenopterous parasitoids. Nearly three-fourths believed that beneficial insects can control pests.

Chemical control. Some 69% of the farmers for the first crop and 97% for the second crop believed that pests can cause serious yield losses without chemical control. Nearly all (94%) thought pests can only be controlled by using pesticides. Farmers were also asked about their views on not using pesticides during the first 30 days after transplanting. Most (66% for the first crop and 94% for the second crop) thought it was impossible to obtain high yields without applying pesticides during this period.

Farmers’ difficulties in decision making for pest control were also investigated. Farmers considered determining a spraying schedule, recognizing symptoms caused by targeted pests, and implementing economic threshold levels as areas in which they had difficulties. Many believed that determining the targeted pests for control and selecting pesticides were the most difficult decisions to make (Table 3).

Pest control practices and attitudes

In 1990, farmers applied pesticides an average of 10 times per season: 3.8 times in seedbeds to control thrips Baliothrips biformis, striped stem borer, and diseases, and 6.2 times in rice fields to control rice planthoppers and sheath blight. Twenty-two percent of the farmers reported having been lightly poisoned or becoming ill after exposure to pesticides. During the heading

stage of the second crop in 1990, farmers reported applying isoprocarb (70%), methamidophos (40%), MTMC (22%), “Jinggangmycin” (a locally made product) (20%), Shachong Shuang (chemical name: (1,3)-bis (sodium thiosulfate)- Z-dimethylaminopropane)(9%), and iprobenfos (4%). Isoprocarb and methamidophos were being used to control insects and Jinggangmycin to control sheath blight. A few farmers were still using illegal chlordimeform and carbofuran. Some of the applications were a mixture of different pesticides. Farmers bought most (92%) of the pesticides from local state-run agroproduct supply corporations. When mixing pesticides, 57% of the farmers measured the chemicals using bottle caps, 21% with measuring cups, and 22% estimated the amounts without using any measuring tool.

Rat control was primarily done after transplanting the second crop, with about one-third of the farmers using poison bait and half relying on their cats. About 20% reported doing nothing. As labor is still plentiful in the area, 97% of the farmers reported using hand weeding to control weeds, but only 3% used herbicides. When selecting pesticides, 42% relied on their own experiences and 39% on the recommendations from the local Agro-technical Extension Station (LATES). Five percent of the farmers said they read the pesticide bottle labels for reference, and 2% said they relied on recommendations from pesticide dealers. Some used the advice of their relatives and friends (9%).

Sources of information for managing pests

Farmers obtained information on pest control from different sources (Fig. 2). The county agricultural technical extension system, which includes a plant protection unit and a pest forecasting station, forecasts pest problems and makes pest control recommendations to farmers. Most of the farmers (61%) got their information from township extension personnel through visits to their homes. village meetings, and radio broadcasts. Twenty-eight percent of the farmers observed their neighbors to obtain information.

After receiving information about pest control, farmers responded in different ways: 42% acted on the extension system’s recommendation, 30% based on their own experiences, and 21% after observing the actions of their neighbors. Only 2% used economic threshold levels as a guide, and 4% relied on calendar spraying. Before taking control actions, 62% of the farmers reported going into the fields themselves to look, 29% observed on the edge of the field, and 4% asked other people to observe for them. Five percent of the farmers said they did nothing after inspecting their fields (Fig. 2).

Farmer training

Forty-one percent of the farmers had never attended the training course on pest management organized by the extension system; 16% had been given on-farm guidance. More than 70% of those attending the training had passed on the knowledge they gained to their neighbors and family members. In terms of education methods, 58% preferred watching demonstrations, 19% opted for attending training courses, and 14% expressed interest in studying technical materials on their own.

Discussion

The economy of Wangcheng County mainly relies on agriculture, particularly rice production. Farmers have been making the transition from traditional to modem agriculture during the past few years. Improving farmers’ knowledge and skills is critical for further economic development. Fu (1994) found that of 17 new techniques presented to farmers in Hunan Province, an average of 21% of the farm households adopted them. Nearly all (95%) adopted hybrid varieties, 56% used plastic films for covering fields, but only 21% adopted IPM. To understand the relationship between techniques and adoption rates, Fu classified techniques as simple and complex. The

mean adoption rate for simple techniques (38%) was significantly higher than that for complex techniques (17%). The adoption rate for simple techniques was not related to education level, while that for complex techniques was related to education level. IPM was considered a complex technique.

The survey results indicated that farmers lacked knowledge on natural enemies, economic thresholds, and yield loss estimation, and that they also overestimated the damage caused by leaf-feeding insects. Nearly three-fourths of them thought that spraying pesticides was the only effective way to control pests, and only 2% believed that resistant varieties could reduce pesticide applications. More than 70% sprayed pesticides within 30 days after transplanting. These results indicate that it would be difficult to implement IPM without first improving farmers' knowledge and attitudes toward IPM.

In places in China other than Hunan, an agricultural technical extension system is responsible for disseminating information to farmers. The system has used traditional approaches for getting information to farmers, such as village meetings, radio broadcasts, notice boards, and demonstration plots. Although 61 % of the farmers obtained information from these extension sources, 42% of them made decisions about pest control based on these and 40% used pesticides based on the extension recommendations.

Most farmers preferred to make decisions based on their own experiences or those of their neighbors. This pattern shows farmers’ low capacity for risk taking and their relatively fixed mindset to do things based on their experiences. The traditional top-down approach for disseminating information needs to be changed if farmers are to expand their knowledge and adopt IPM practices. Farmer field schools and farmer participatory research consider farmers to be the core for implementing IPM and improving their knowledge through field practices and participatory experiments (Escalada and Heong 1993). These methods provide good examples of techniques to complement methods being used by extension.

References

Du Z. 1991, Tactics for integrated management of pests and diseases for rice in China. Zhejiang Science and Technology Press, China. (In Chinese.).

Escalada MM, Heong KL. 1993. Communication and implementation of change in crop protection. In: Crop protection and sustainable agriculture. Ciba Foundation Symposium 177. Chichester: J. Wiley & Sons. p. 191-207.

Fu T. 1994. Analysis on situation and impact of farmers adopting agriculture. New technology in Hunan. In: Diangxian F (editor). Research on agro-tech-extension. China: China Agro Science Press. p. 168-174. (In Chinese.)

Litsinger JA, Price EC, Herrera RT. 1980. Small farmer pest control practices for rainfed rice, corn, and grain legumes in three Philippine provinces. Philippine Entomologist 5(1-2):65-86.

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Notes

Authors’ addresses: Li Shao-Shi, Hunan Plant Protection and Quarantine Station, Changsha 410005, China; Guo Yu-Jie, Biological Control Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 10081, China; Hu Guo-Wen, China National Rice Research Institute, Hangzhou 310006; Liang Di-Yun, General Station of Plant Protection. Ministry of Agriculture, Beijing 100026, China.

Acknowledgments: The authors thank Drs. K.L. Heong and M.M. Escalada for their support for this project, Prof. Cheng Jiaan for his helpful comments, and the seven agrotechnicians of the Plant Protection Center of Wangcheng County who conducted the survey. The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation funded this research through the Rice IPM Network.

Citation: Li Shao-Shi, Guo Yu-Jie, Hu Guc-Wen, and Liang Di-Yun. 1997. Pest management practices of rice farmers in Hunan, China. p. 53-61. In: Heong KL, Escalada MM (editors). 1997. Pest management of rice farmers in Asia. Manila, Philippines: International Rice Research Institute, 245 p.