e-surveillance to tackle pest attack in 5 districts

The Pioneer, June 19, 2010
Sudhir Mishra, Balangir

It is a common sight in rural areas to find crops being affected by various pests causing heavy loss to the already burdened farmers and even leading to their suicides, thanks to the absence of proper surveillance, lack of prompt response and steps by the agriculture officials to contain it, besides the ignorance of farmers.

According to sources, around 8,000 hectares of paddy fields were affected by pests in the undivided Balangir district.

The major pest-prone areas are Degoan, Loisingha, Agalpur, Gudvela and Tusura and Ulunda area of Subarnapur district. They are riverside lands.

In Balangir district, the main pests found attacking the crops are the Swarming Caterpillar (SC), Brown Plant Hopper (BPH), Stem Bore (SB) and Leaf Folder (LF).

In case of pest attack, it is controlled by the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) measures consisting of seed treatment, summer ploughing, balanced use of fertiliser application, line sowing, optimum plant population, mechanic controlled method, biological control method and chemical method spraying, if required.

The major diseases affecting the paddy are Bacteria Leaf Blight (BLB) and Blast Sheath Blight (BSB).

The paddy leaf is divided into two parts -- leaf sheath and leaf lamina.

The pest surveillance is required for timely control measures and to minimise the loss due to pest attack on the crop.

Pest surveillance is the survey of pest attack in a wide area to observe the occurrence, pest and diseases especially in the paddy crop.

Normally, the field-level extension workers carry out two types of survey -- fixed plot survey and roving survey.

SB pest attacks the paddy in the nursery stage and the SC pest attacks and spreads rapidly overnight.

In the event of any incidence of pest attack, the ground-level agriculture officials inform the district-level agriculture officials, who in turn inform the directorate.

After receiving the information, the directorate informs the OUAT and other technical body about the malady and they send a team of scientists, who visit the field and issue advisory to the farmers.

However, a lot of time by then, around a week, has elapsed and the damage is already done, often resulting in an almost waste.

With the introduction of e-surveillance of pest, the other responses are all set to be a thing of the past.

According to the agriculture office sources, the e-surveillance is going to be taken up in five undivided districts of Sundargarh, Balangir, Sambalpur, Kalahandi and Koraput. The entire Balangir district has been divided into three units Balangir, Titilagarh and Patnagarh.

Under this pilot project, besides the plant protection officer, who is the coordinator, pest monitor and pest scout would be recruited.

The pest scouts would visit eight villages in a week and would submit their reports daily to plant protection officer on Wednesday and Saturday.

The scouts would carry out roving survey on fixed plots.

They would send data to the pest protection officer, who after verifying it, would send to the website to be created by New Delhi-based National Centre for Integrated Pest Management (NCIPM).

The other agencies to be involved in the efforts are Bhubaneswar-based CIPM, Cuttack-based Central Rice Research Institute (CRRI) and the OUAT.

After getting the information, the CRRI and OUAT will look into it and immediately issue advisory to the field staff, besides alerting the leading farmers through SMS on their mobile phones.

There was the concept of Economic Threshold Limit (ETL) for each crop. After crossing the ETL, there appears the damage of crop and loss to the farmers. However, the ETL concept is getting outdated and there is also separate ETL for every crop.

As there are several eco-friendly insects in the field to control the pests naturally, the concept of Pest Defender Ration (PDR) has been introduced.

If the PDR is more than 2.1, the farmers are advised for going in for the chemical control when the climate is favourable.

A separate website is going to be launched and the recruitment process is going on to fill up the required personnel, informed an agriculture official.

The e-surveillance would be effective by July once crop comes up in the filed, added another official.