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Of BaTonga traditional pesticides

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THE army worm is wrecking havoc in most farming districts around the country.
Poor rural farmers who cannot afford chemicals to spray or protect their crops against this scourge always get poor yields.
However, this has not been the case for BaTonga farmers who seem to have managed to control the pests using simple natural ways.
The BaTonga believe they have been spared from the curse of the army worm by the use of rare natural pesticides and organic manure that make crops more resistant to attacks by the worms and other insects.
The BaTonga, traditionally living along the Zambezi escarpment, have intimate knowledge of over 600 local medicinal plants with over 100 medicinal uses to treat wounds, (snake/mosquito) bites, coughs, diarrhoea and other illnesses.
They have also used these herbs as bio-pesticides in their gardens and fields with pleasing results as the farmers have gotten high yields.
While farmers from other provinces usually resort to using chemical pesticide sprays to mitigate the army worm and other pest problems, the BaTonga rural farmers, who cannot afford the pesticides, shifted from relying on using the convectional and modern pesticides.
The BaTonga have used these bio-pesticides for a long time to control weevils and other notorious pests that raided their fields and gardens for a long time.
According to BaTonga elders, simple mixtures of the mopane tree charcoals with green tomato leaf sap sprinkled in their gardens can help in clearing nematodes, spiders and other vegetable-eating pests.
The BaTonga elders also said a mixture of ashes, salt and chillies has been used for many years to protect their crops from pests such as locusts and worms, small ruminants such as goats and sheep could not eat the crop because of the unsavory chilli taste.
According to BaTonga elders, organic manure also plays a role in controlling troublesome pests in their fields.
The organic manure that is collected under the trees or the rich alluvial soils that are obtained at the banks of the Zambezi River and its tributaries are also treated with herbs and ashes.
They believe the mixing of ash with organic manure helps in enhancing the quality of the manure as well as making it more detestable to pests, hence the mixture doubled as a manure and pesticide.
The BaTonga farmers also use a mixture of baobab ash, cow dung and chillies to repel swarms of locusts that are troublesome during the cropping season.
The mixture is stirred in water in huge drums and left to stand for a week before it is sprinkled in the fields.
Apparently the same mixture is dried and made into small blocks that are burnt at the edge of the field during the night to scare away herds of buffalo, hippo and elephants that normally raid their fields during the farming season.
They say wild animals and birds had gotten used to scarecrows and drum-beating boys, but the chilli bombs are an alternative.
They said the mixtures are environmentally friendly and do not directly kill the pests, but simply deter them from eating their crops.
The BaTonga say they have always used bio-pesticides for many years and these have proved effective in combating the persistent pest problems faced by most farmers.
They say in some cases if they use modern pesticides, the pests develop a form of resistance to the chemicals, hence the use of traditional methods.
According to some scientific journals, scientists concur that insects have over the years developed detoxification mechanisms as a result of farmers’ reliance on the same chemical substances.
This is well documented for one common pest, the diamondback moth, which is now resistant to almost all commercial pesticides.
However, such resistance is not a problem with BaTonga’s bio-pesticides.
While BaTonga farmers say there are some advantages in the use of pesticides, some farmers usually apply or use them without taking safety precautions such as protecting oneself from the spray mist, or using the correct dosage and intervals between applications.
This has often resulted in insects developing resistance against certain pesticides.
The BaTonga say although the development of insect resistance to chemical pesticides has been extensively reported, even farmers with low literacy levels have not heeded the call to switch to the better use of slow-killing bio-pesticides.
They continue to suffer the damages inflicted by the pests.
BaTonga farmers blame the aggressive marketing strategies by retailers who coerce the barely literate farmers to sell toxic pesticides of poor quality that are sometimes inappropriate for targeted crops.
This, they say, has caused serious health risks to some of the BaTonga farmers and the environment.
Acute and chronic side-effects include the development of skin and neurological disorders.
While most farmers have ignored the use of natural ways in the management of pests and diseases on their crops, bio-pesticides derived from plants as well as macro-organisms such as viruses and fungi have virtually no adverse impact on the environmental and human health.
The BaTonga say they believe bio-pesticides and organic manure are the only solution to poor rural farmers as they are as effective as conventional pesticides, although their killing effect is a bit slower.
They say at the end of the cropping season, the bio-pesticides can still protect crops well, providing the same or better yield as chemical treatments.
The issue of the slow-killing effect, they say, is insignificant, especially in the face of climate change where most of the agricultural pests have developed resistance to chemical pesticides.
Climate change and global warming have brought about changes in both disease and changes in insect or pest resistance.
These changes not only call for a dynamic shift in the way farmers practise their agriculture, but policy makers must do more to promote the use of bio-pesticides as they are less harmful to the environment.

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