Parrot menace hits sunflower crop
NIZAMABAD: What is the nutrition for parrots in this modern age? This has been haunting the agricultural department for the past few years.
It is generally believed that parrots depend on fruits alone for their nourishment. Of late, researchers in agricultural department have found that these species have changed their eating habits and became a menace to the farmers’ produce.
Parrots nesting in Nizamabad city and other towns in the district have been securing food by attacking sunflower and the less grown maize and millet crops during rabi season.
Farmers have been adopting several methods to ward off the birds attacking their fields, in large numbers, using various instruments for producing sounds and tying ribbons in the fields but to no avail.
Speaking to this website’s newspaper Agricultural Department joint director R Narendranath Reddy said that there has been a 5-10 per cent reduction in sunflower yield in majority of the mandals due to attack by parrots.
Bird menace has become an obstacle in encouraging farmers to switch over to commerical crops from the traditional ones, he lamented.
Keeping the birds away from the fields is posing a challenge to the ryots, he said.
Agricultural experts in Acharya NG Ranga Agricultural University with the help of Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) had been conducting research on ‘Agricultural Ornithology’ on a largescale for the past three years.
According to the researchers, there are 1,200 types of birds in the world, 600 in the country and 350 types in the State.
While 150 species in the State are being instrumental in protection of crops, about 26 types are causing damage to the farmers’ produce and these have been named ‘roosting sights’ by the agricultural department.
All India project coordinator for research on Agricultural Ornithology Dr V Vasudeva Rao said they had begun the research to identify the birds feeding on different types of crops in various places through Global Position Instrument and Global Information System. ‘‘We are coordinating with research taken up on the same issue in various other States,’’ he said.
Speaking about various other findings, he said 25 other types of birds apart from the parrots have changed their habitat due to lack of trees producing edible fruits. They have now started attacking crops, he said.
There is every need to grow trees that can produce traditional food to the birds in forest areas, he felt and pointed out that the felling of trees in forests has prompted birds to shift to towns and cities for the last few decades.
People should be enlightened about the changing climate and the threats being posed to different species, he added.