• The birds consume an average of 10g of grain a day each.
• Deputy Governor Peter Ndambiri said eight million birds were reported to have invaded the area this season.
Mwea rice farmers have welcomed the killing of millions of quelea birds that have wreaked havoc on their farms.
The national and Kirinyaga county governments sprayed the farms to protect their crops. The voracious tiny bird, which measures about 12cm in length and weighs 15-26g, is known to cause devastations annually in the expansive rice irrigation scheme.
The bird consumes an average of 10g of grain a day. Kirinyaga Deputy Governor Peter Ndambiri said eight million birds were reported to have invaded the area this season. He said they destroyed 72,000kg of rice per day.
Ndambiri spoke to the press after overseeing the spraying. He said the farmers had spent a lot of money to hire people to control the birds, which travel in swarms of over three thousand at one go.
Farmers said they incurred heavy losses since the birds invaded the area a month ago. They said it had become too expensive to grow the crop but thanked the county government for the initiative. Muriuki Ngaruiya said he spent Sh1,000 every day to hire individuals to control the birds.
Patrick Wamugunda thanked the government for coming to their rescue.
"Now we will be able to save the money we have been spending on people to scare away the birds," he said.
The county government is working with growers to fix the problem, which Ndambiri described as "a major threat to food security".
He was accompanied by farmers and senior county officials. The spraying initiative will continue for the next three days to ensure the birds are eliminated from the scheme.
"We'll have the plane carrying daily spraying in their nest for the next three days. We can't allow the birds to destroy produce every time we expect a bumper harvest."
Ndambiri appealed to the government to burn importation of rice during harvesting. A kilogramme of rice is selling at Sh60 and he blamed it on the influx of imported rice. However, at a time like this last year, a kilogramme was going for between Sh80 and Sh100, with farmers able to recoup their cost of production.
The deputy county chief urged legislators to pressure the government to buy rice as one of the food reserves and discourage importation of rice.
"Let the government buy our rice to feed our soldiers and those training as police officers. They should stop importing rice to feed our security forces."
He urged county officials to arrest individuals mixing the rice with other varieties.
(Edited by F'Orieny)